Bend Studio, previously known as Blank, Berlyn & Co., Inc. and Eidetic, Inc., is an American video game developer located in Bend, Oregon. The studio was founded in 1992 and is most famous for creating games such as Bubsy 3D, the Syphon Filter series, and Days Gone. Since 2000, Bend Studio has worked directly with Sony Interactive Entertainment as part of PlayStation Studios.
History
Marc Blank and Michael Berlyn started a company called Blank, Berlyn & Co. in 1992. Blank had previously worked at Infocom, where he helped create games, and Berlyn had also worked at Infocom before joining Accolade. A California company contacted Blank after an employee remembered that Infocom had made a software package called Cornerstone and also created games. This company wanted to make a "sound-oriented game machine for cars," and Blank suggested a series of sports games that would sound like radio broadcasts. The project was not made, but Blank later used the idea to create an American football video game that sounded like a TV broadcast. In 1992, Blank shared this idea with Berlyn, asking if Accolade would be interested in making such a game.
After the 1993 release of Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, Berlyn took a break from Accolade. Around this time, Blank and Berlyn began developing games under the name Blank, Berlyn & Co. Blank became the president of the new company. Their first games were Columbo's Mystery Capers and Dell Crossword Puzzles, released in November 1993 for the Apple Newton by StarCore, Apple’s publishing label for the Newton. Two more games, Dell Crossword Puzzles and Other Word Games and Motile, were released in June 1994. Arnie Katz of Electronic Games said these releases made Blank, Berlyn & Co. "tremendously successful." Later, Russ Wetmore, who had worked at Apple for seven years, joined the company. He helped develop Live Action Football using ScriptX, a tool that allowed the game to be released on both Microsoft Windows and Macintosh System Software. Accolade published the game in November 1994 as the first in a planned series of sports games. The next game in the series was intended to be a baseball game.
After these releases, Blank, Berlyn & Co. changed its name to Eidetic in April 1995 and hired Christopher Reese as technical director. Under Eidetic, the company developed Bubsy 3D, its first console and 3D game. Reese described the move to 3D as "difficult." Released in 1996 for the PlayStation, Bubsy 3D was not successful, and Reese said it faced strong competition from Crash Bandicoot. Later, 989 Studios, a part of Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), asked Eidetic to develop Syphon Filter, an action and stealth game. John Garvin, who joined the team as creative director, said SCE trusted Eidetic because it had experience making games for the PlayStation and already had a game engine that could be used for Syphon Filter. However, developing Syphon Filter was challenging because Eidetic had no prior experience with stealth-action games. The company grew to 13 employees, but Berlyn left due to his concerns about the video game industry and the nature of Syphon Filter. The project faced delays and changes, and was nearly canceled several times. Despite these issues, 989 Studios producer Connie Booth supported the game. Syphon Filter was released in 1999 and sold over one million copies.
Eidetic continued making Syphon Filter games for SCE, creating six more until 2007. In 2000, SCE bought the studio and renamed it Bend Studio. Bend Studio wanted to create games for a new franchise and decided to make a Resistance game for the PlayStation Portable because of similarities between Resistance and Syphon Filter. Bend Studio made a demo for the game and showed it to SCE producers and the original Resistance developer, Insomniac Games. The demo was approved, and development of Resistance: Retribution began. After its 2009 release, Bend Studio worked on Uncharted: Golden Abyss for the PlayStation Vita. After several rejected ideas, the Uncharted franchise developer, Naughty Dog, approved Bend Studio’s plan. Bend Studio used assets from Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and also worked on Uncharted: Fight for Fortune with One Loop Games.
Bend Studio’s first original game after Syphon Filter was Days Gone, released in April 2019 for the PlayStation 4. By December 2020, John Garvin and the game’s director, Jeff Ross, had left the studio. Garvin claimed the company fired him for having "a disruptive personality." Bend Studio later distanced itself from Garvin after he criticized "woke" reviewers on Twitter for the game’s average reception.
As of June 2021, Bend Studio was working on a new game that used systems from Days Gone. In June 2022, the studio unveiled a new logo. In January 2025, Sony canceled a live-service game that Bend Studio had been developing since 2021. In June 2025, Jason Schreier of Bloomberg reported that Bend Studio had laid off 30% of its staff, about 40 employees. Sony confirmed the layoffs but did not share the exact number of employees affected.