"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, revealing 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 Sony-owned Firesprite shared several screenshots in their online portfolio. Although the images are blurred and marked "Under NDA," they fall under the codename Project Copper, which is thought to have been the internal name for the unreleased live-service Twisted Metal game.

Twisted Metal, a vehicle combat video game franchise that originated on the PSone and hasn't seen a new installment since the PlayStation 3 era, was set to be 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 described Project Copper as having "third-person shooter mechanics wrapped with third-person vehicle combat with the objective of being the last one standing" (thanks, MP1st).

Sony reportedly canceled Twisted Metal as part of mass layoffs announced in February 2024. At the time, the game "wasn't yet greenlit" but had been in development at UK studio Firesprite, which was affected by the layoffs, as confirmed by Sony.

The 100 Best PlayStation Games of All Time

100 ImagesTwisted Metal was one of several projects shelved as Sony scaled back its focus on live service games following an internal drive to develop more of these titles. Naughty Dog halted development on The Last of Us Online in December 2023, citing that it would have required all resources to be devoted to post-launch content for years, severely limiting their capacity to create future single-player games.

Despite the success of Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2, which became the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, Sony faced a significant setback with its live service hero shooter Concord. It was one of the most notable flops in PlayStation's history, lasting only a few weeks before being taken offline due to extremely low player numbers. Sony eventually decided to cancel the game entirely and shut down its developer.

In January, Sony canceled two unannounced live service games, including a God of War title in development at Bluepoint and another from Days Gone developer Bend.

While fans may not see a new Twisted Metal game in the near future, the Twisted Metal TV series starring Anthony Mackie is slated to return for Season 2 on Peacock. IGN's review of Twisted Metal Season 1 awarded it an 8/10, praising it as "a miraculously enjoyable blend of comedy, violence, and thoughtfulness," though noting it was sometimes overloaded with jokes.