Summary

• Shuhei Yoshida sheds light on the cancellation of Wild, citing the ambitious development process.
• Wild’s massive scope led to development challenges and eventual cancellation.
• Ubisoft’s takeover of Wild’s publication, amidst an internal scandal, worsened development woes for the open-world game.

Former PlayStation Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has finally spoken out on the canceled open-world game Wild, which Sony had originally hailed as a major PlayStation console exclusive before its untimely fate. While Yoshida’s comments do little to provide much hope for the potential return of Wild in the future, he sheds some light on the game’s development, which he claims was marred partly by its ambition.

Announced as a PlayStation 4 exclusive over a decade ago, Wild was a major open-world project from Wild Sheep Studio and the mind of Michael Ancel, creator of the popular platformer series Rayman, before its eventual cancellation after a change in management. Originally, Sony was intended to publish the game as a first-party exclusive, but Ubisoft later took over publication amidst a change in management.

Yoshida commented, “Wild had some ambitious ideas, including a potential open-world map the size of Europe.”

The game’s ambition was reportedly a double-edged sword. While it was seen as one of the most significant PlayStation projects, it also faced difficulties in execution as the development continued. The situation worsened when Ubisoft assumed publication duties amid a corporate restructuring, which occurred due to internal scandals and management changes that left the team struggling to meet deadlines.

Yoshida’s comments reaffirm that some of the innovative ideas proposed for Wild were easy to conceive but challenging to realize within video game development constraints. This continues to leave an air of mystery around the details of Wild’s development that has yet to be fully unveiled.