Sony-owned Media Molecule has revealed it will stop active development of Dreams later this year. After a final update in September, live support for the game creation platform will come to an end, though the studio will still deploy critical bug fixes when necessary.
The decision means that Dreams will not be updated to include multiplayer support, as had long been the plan. Nor will Media Molecule release versions of Dreams for PlayStation 5 or PlayStation VR2. Dreams arrived on PS4 in early 2020 and Media Molecule added PSVR support a few months later.
Dreams will remain on sale and it’ll still be possible to create experiences and check out ones made by other folks. As part of a server transition, though, Media Molecule will impose new storage limits on player creations. Users will have an online storage capacity of 5GB, but existing projects don’t count toward the limit.
Moreover, Media Molecule will stop running its own Dreams events that were designed to shine a spotlight on some of the most impressive and captivating community creations. The studio is also nixing some features, including native Twitch support (but you’ll likely still be able to stream what you’re doing in Dreams via console-level Twitch integration).
Here's a condensed version of the fanart I did for #thelastofus in Dreams on my PS5. Everything here was sculpted from scratch for this project. Look forward to making a similar video for season two ❤️#MadeInDreams pic.twitter.com/dJ3c3NJuLb
— Martin Nebelong (@MartinNebelong) April 8, 2023
It’s a shame to see Media Molecule abandoning Dreams. The platform is home to a wide array of compelling experiences. Some creators have even landed jobs in game development as a result of their Dreams concoctions. Last year, Sony's movie division scooped up the rights to release a film that's partially being made in Dreams.
It seems that Dreams wasn’t quite as successful as Media Molecule and Sony had hoped in order to justify continued work on the platform. “Whilst we’ve always had the desire to build on the foundation of Dreams and expand the experience, when reviewing our plans we were not able to define a sustainable path,” the studio wrote in its announcement.
Media Molecule says it’s moving on to an “exciting new project” that isn’t connected to Dreams but noted that the decision to end development on the platform wasn’t an easy one. “Dreams has been a special project for Media Molecule, and helping this burgeoning community of game developers, tinkerers, creatives, collaborators and dreamers grow and express themselves remains one of the best things we’ve ever done,” it said.