Thanks to the portfolio of a lead UI programmer who worked at Firesprite, one of many Sony-owned studios hit by layoffs in 2024, we know that the Twisted Metal game the studio was working on was "a 3rd person vehicular action combat game" that had "3rd person shooter mechanics wrapped with 3rd person vehicle combat with the objective of being the last one standing." (Thanks, MP1st.) Sure sounds like a battle royale game to me, though admittedly every Twisted Metal game sounds sort of like a battle royale, even though the series predates the trend.
You can see why Sony might have said, "Hey, we've got this thing that already resembles a popular genre, let's turn it into one of those and then roll around in all the money for a bit." It's harder to see why it would include out-of-the-vehicle action, as the blurred-out screenshots on the programmer's portfolio show. I can imagine a Twisted Metal game that lets you hop out of the car if you want, but only so you can immediately be run over by a clown in a monster truck.
Sony had previously declared its intention to release 10 live-service games by its 2025 fiscal year, and presumably this Twisted Metal battle royale was part of that scheme. With the Twisted Metal TV series doing quite well for itself (a second season is on the way), it sure would be a swell time to have a new game for people to play. But then it would have been nice for Bethesda to be able to direct fans of the Fallout show to something other than Fallout 76, and that didn't happen either.
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