Sony Interactive Entertainment’s 2024 was a bizarre mix of dizzying heights and pitch-black failure – and it was the first of its kind.

As we entered 2024, none of us were prepared for the downright crazy year Sony was about to embark on. Sure, the calendar was atypically empty – especially when it came to internally developed single-player games – but mostly it looked boring. Wolverine on the horizon, a few live service titles in the form of Fairgames, Marathon and Concord and then a trio of externally developed games – Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade and Helldivers II – to fill the gap in the first batch. As I said, boring and empty.

When the first release hit the streets, however, the tone changed. Helldivers II was released to excellent reviews and skyrocketing player numbers, and for a few months it seemed that Sony’s massive live service correction would pay off. This was welcome news, especially after the December 2023 cancellation of The Last of Us Online.

The following months saw the emergence of the Ronin and Stellar Blade. The former was a somewhat disappointing experience that ranks among Team Ninja’s most forgettable games in recent history, while the South Korean-developed Stellar Blade stirred up critics and commentators a bit more with its shamelessly entertaining combination of Nier: Automata and Soulslikes with a protagonist whose clothing seemed to attract more headlines than all other elements of the game combined.

So the first half of the year went by without a single release (other than the annual MLB: The Show 24) from Sony’s own studios. Again, not the most exciting.

On the last day of spring, however, that all changed. A rumored showcase turned out to be a State of Play, and it was opened and closed by the two titles that would prove to be opposites in every way. Opener Concord was met with universal negativity. Trending and out of step with the times was the criticism, and its status as a live service didn’t help either.

Closer Astro Bot, with its “gameplay first” approach and ultra-charming entrance to the stage, aptly symbolized the completely opposite reaction.

The two games were released only a few weeks apart, but tragicomically, Concord had already been discontinued when Astro Bot stunned critics, including yours truly. Concord’s reviews were pretty average, but it quickly became clear that the audience wasn’t there. As in not at all, not at all. The game peaked at just under 700 players on Steam. An almost unheard of low number, so Sony pulled out the scythe and promptly shut down the brutally expensive game. Brutal is too modest a word in this case.

Astro Bot was an entirely different story. Its sales figures are modest at the moment, but with an Opencritic rating of 95%, user reviews at the same level and a recent Game Awards victory under its belt, there is no doubt that it is a triumph for Sony on most parameters. It refers back to an era in Sony’s history that many miss. The good old days when gameplay came first and creativity trumped insane production values.

However, the wave on which Astro Bot rode did not reach its final release of the year. Lego Horizon Adventures was a somewhat bizarre idea on paper that worked well enough in practice, but never rose above average, which is reflected in preliminary indications of sales figures.

In this way, Sony’s year ended on a bit of a sour note. If the two internally developed games are any indication of the future, the way forward seems obvious. And it is telling that we have seen nothing from Marathon or Fairgames, while Sony announced two large-scale single-player games from two of their most high-profile studios in the final months of the year. However, they both taste more like PS4 Sony than the PS2 Sony that Astro Bot represented.

With the resounding failure of Concord and countless cancellations, the big announced shift to live service, if not cancelled, seems to have at least been significantly watered down. However, there are still projects in the pipeline and new developments in the saga are likely in 2025.

For now, however, the focus seems to be on bringing back into the spotlight the more classic prestige titles that Sony had so much success with during the PS4 era. Wolverine, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yotei are a strong four-leaf clover, the latter two of which will land next year.

That bodes well, because on paper it’s a strong four-leaf clover that we don’t know much about yet. But to me, it also tastes a little too much like classic Sony prestige. I hope Sony is inspired by the success of Astro Bot (and not deterred by the apparent failure of Lego Horizon Adventures), and that they consider more titles in the future that might not push photorealism and push the boundaries of cinematic storytelling, but instead focus on creative concepts and old-fashioned fun. Because in 2024, that’s what saved the year from a software disaster.