"Canceled Twisted Metal Game Blended Vehicular Combat, Shooting, and Battle Royale, Developer Reveals"

Brand new images of Sony's canceled Twisted Metal game have surfaced online, suggesting that developer Firesprite was working on a live service game that combined the series' iconic vehicular combat with battle royale elements. A former UI developer at the Sony-owned Firesprite shared several screenshots on their online portfolio. Although the images are deliberately blurred and marked "Under NDA," they are tagged with the codename Project Copper, believed to be the internal designation for the unannounced live-service Twisted Metal game.

Twisted Metal, a renowned vehicle combat franchise that debuted on the PSone and last saw a new release during the PlayStation 3 era, was being reimagined as "a third-person vehicular action combat game based on a classic IP owned by PlayStation and developed by Firesprite," according to the developer. They further explained that Project Copper incorporated "third-person shooter mechanics wrapped with third-person vehicle combat with the objective of being the last one standing" (via MP1st).

Sony reportedly canceled Twisted Metal amid mass layoffs announced in February 2024. At that time, the game "wasn't yet greenlit" but was being developed at the UK studio Firesprite, which was affected by the layoffs.

The 100 Best PlayStation Games of All Time

100 ImagesTwisted Metal was sidelined as part of a broader retreat from live service games at Sony, following an aggressive push to develop more of these titles. Naughty Dog halted work on The Last of Us Online in December 2023, citing the need to dedicate all resources to post-launch content for years, which would have severely limited its capacity to create future single-player games.

While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 became a massive success, selling 12 million copies in just 12 weeks and becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever, Sony's live service hero shooter Concord turned out to be a significant disappointment. It lasted only a few weeks before being taken offline due to extremely low player numbers, leading Sony to cancel the game entirely and close its developer.

In January, Sony also canceled two other unannounced live service games: one being a God of War title developed by Bluepoint, and another at Days Gone developer Bend.

Although it seems unlikely that we'll see a new Twisted Metal game soon, the Twisted Metal TV series starring Anthony Mackie is set to return for Season 2 on Peacock. IGN's review of Twisted Metal Season 1 gave it an 8/10, praising it as "a miraculously enjoyable blend of comedy, violence, and thoughtfulness," despite occasionally being overloaded with humor.