By skyforbes Naturally, this has sparked discussions about why neither game is coming to PS5, with some claiming it signals that Sony is “moving away from consoles.” Personally, I think it’s actually smart that they’re not launching these on PS5, at least not right now. Here’s why.
Over the past few years, PlayStation has gained a reputation (largely from its own fans) that it’s “chasing trends” with live-service games and “ruining” beloved IPs to do so. Every time a live-service title gets announced, sections of the PlayStation community immediately turn on it, calling it “live-service slop,” hoping it fails, and demanding Sony “go back to its roots.”
We saw this with Marathon, where fans complained it wasn’t single-player and gatekept it before it even launched. This hostility has become a real brand problem for PlayStation leadership.
They essentially have two choices:
- Stop making live-service games altogether (which makes no business sense given that roughly 40% of gamers only play such games), or
- Continue developing them, but release them away from the PlayStation ecosystem where the loudest resistance comes from.
That’s why I think these new games are launching on mobile and PC instead of PS5.
Of course, this shift has already created a new narrative: that Sony is “abandoning” its platform and core audience. But honestly, this is a better problem to have. By keeping these games off PS5 initially, Sony flips the psychology; instead of fans wanting them to fail, they’ll now start asking for PS5 ports. And when those ports inevitably happen, fans will be grateful to get them instead of resentful.
There are also practical reasons:
- These games are made by third-party partners, not PlayStation Studios.
- They’re clearly not on the same visual or technical level as Rift Apart or Forbidden West, and releasing them on PS5 could hurt the perceived quality of those IPs.
- Being heavily microtransaction-driven, they don’t really fit with PlayStation 5’s “premium” image.
- And finally, both IPs have mainline PS5 entries in development (Insomniac is working on another Ratchet, and Guerrilla reportedly has a Monster Hunter-style Horizon game coming). Oversaturating the PS5 with side projects could lead to fatigue.
So overall, I think Sony made the right call. Limiting these two games to mobile (and PC) keeps their console ecosystem clean, avoids backlash from their most vocal fans, and allows them to reintroduce these games later (on their own terms) if the demand is there.