Sony Computer Entertainment America has filed a new trademark. Registered as “video game software” and “entertainment services, namely providing an on-line real-time electronic game for others over global and local area computer networks,” the name which SCEA has applied for (on December 28, 2015) is Days Gone. What does this mean?
Potentially nothing. These types of trademarks are filed all of the time. Just this past summer, SCEA also filed a trademark for the name Gnomeageddon. I shit you not. Like all of these patents that Nintendo has been filing for what we think will be the NX, maybe a tenth of those ideas actually come to fruition.
However, there is a chance that this could be the newest brand in Sony’s first-party lineup. Let’s look at that situation: Sucker Punch is a complete mystery. Scott Rhodes, in an interview with Kinda Funny Games, has said he has played their next game, but that it is still very early in development. Cory Barlog has said that Santa Monica Studio is working on a new God of War, but that comment is over a year old. That leaves the wild card that nobody can stop talking about: Sony Bend Studio.
The Playstation community has been hyped for this game for a long time, without even knowing much about it. Shuhei Yoshida has continually added fuel to the flame by talking about how much he loved it when he got to play it, and how it is their “biggest game yet.” However, all we really know about it is a rumor from a (fairly credible) NeoGAF insider that it will be an open-world horror game, more along the lines of The Last Of US.
Days Gone. Hmmm. Sounds like it could fit that bill. My first thought was literally a Last Of Us sequel.
Again, this could be nothing. It could very well be a smaller, PSN-only game. No details on the trademark have emerged as of yet. It seems like any time something happens in the world of Sony, everyone (including me) cries “Sony Bend!” I thought we’d see it a Paris, then I was so sure we’d see it at PSX. Nope. At the same time, however, those SCE executives seem quite determined to keep us talking about Sony Bend.