It seems that former Call of Duty producer Jason Blundell (who helped shape Zombies at Treyarch) has no plans to disappear. Because just a week after Sony suddenly closed his previous studio, Dark Outlaw Games, Blundell immediately announced the establishment of a new studio, Magic Fractal Studios, and returned to the AAA development stage.
The first two PlayStation collaborations didn’t go well
The reason why this experience is used as a topic is that it hit the wall twice in a row. Blundell's first entrepreneurial project was PlayStation partner Deviation Games, but the studio came to an end in 2024; and his latest Dark Outlaw Games had just been shut down by Sony and laid off about 50 employees while the team was developing a new AAA original IP. After suffering consecutive setbacks in a short period of time, most people would probably stop for a while, but Blundell chose to start the third game directly.
The partners revealed in the new studio are all old acquaintances
Blundell announced the new studio alongside former Dark Outlaw developer and YouTuber JCbackfire. JCbackfire expressed excitement about the future during the live broadcast, but also mentioned that he must be careful what he says, implying that it is still in the early stages and the information that can be disclosed is limited. Even so, for a team that has just experienced studio closures, setting up a new company first is like a signal to start over.
If it doesn’t work the third time, then the fourth time?
The article quotes Blundell, which pretty much sums up the spirit of the whole thing: He hopes it will work the third time, and if not, the fourth time. This semi-self-deprecating persistence also reflects the cruel reality of the current game industry. Studio closures, layoffs, and fundraising difficulties have become the norm. Whether you can survive sometimes really depends not only on ability, but also on timing and funding trends.
This is not a personal legend, but a survival sample of the game industry in 2026!
From the outside, this story looks like the dramatic return of the father of the zombie mode; but on a deeper level, it is actually a profile of the current state of the industry: even senior producers with reputations and resumes will be overthrown by funding, cooperation projects, and corporate strategies. It’s hard to say whether Blundell’s new studio can actually produce works, but at least he has proved with actions: In this era, if you want to make AAA, you must first learn to start over.
For Southeast Asian players, the practical impact of this development around nothing more than three? wrong, wrong, wrong, sony just closed jason blundell’s second company, and he directl will be measured by update reliability, platform performance, and whether the next official communication delivers concrete follow-through.