PlayStation gamers heartbroken as beloved franchise quietly 'shelved'

Many PlayStation gamers will be heartbroken to learn that a beloved franchise has been quietly shelved.

The PlayStation brand has many lovable mascots, from Astro Bot, to PaRappa the Rapper, Nathan Drake, and more. We can even throw Kratos into that mix with his unique, angry and grizzled but lovable way.

Having recognisable faces as leading mascots is vital to a console’s brand identity, as we’ve seen over the years, not just with PlayStation but the OGs such as Super Mario for Nintendo and Sonic the Hedgehog for SEGA (RIP SEGA consoles).

Check out the LittleBigPlanet 3 trailer below!

One other lovable mascot that won the hearts of many gamers ever since he was first introduced in 2008 on the PlayStation 3 is Sackboy of the LittleBigPlanet franchise. If you’re too young to know the importance of Sackboy, he was the equivalent of Astro Bot back in the day.

Sadly, Sackboy hasn't been anywhere near as prominent in the world of PlayStation as he once was. His last appearance was with the fantastic 2020 platform spin-off, Sackboy: A Big Adventure.

However, when it comes to mainline entries in the LittleBigPlanet series, once developed by Media Molecule, it was over 10 years ago in 2014 that LittleBigPlanet 3 landed from Sumo Digital.

As such, it might not come as a total surprise that it looks like Sony PlayStation has well and truly abandoned Sackboy and friends of the LittleBigPlanet series.

As reported by PlayStation Lifestyle, some gamers who visited the cinema to watch the live-action adaptation of Until Dawn noticed that Sackboy no longer features in the PlayStation Productions opening animation video.

In two comparison images shared by Twitter user Radec, Sackboy is nowhere to be seen in the updated opening video and to be honest, it’s a little heartbreaking to see our boy dumped like a sack of spuds.

“My boy,” tweeted Twitch ANZ with an in memoriam image of Sackboy, replying to NextGenPlayer.

“Sackboy: A Big Adventure is amazing though, they should be making both, not just Astro Bot,” said AtlsShrugd.

“They took out my boy? But he was just in that Secret Level episode!” exclaimed ClankStarr, replying to Radec.

“PlayStation, you are making a big mistake,” said ramenboy.

So, if you were looking forward to seeing a new LittleBigPlanet game anytime soon, it might be best to expect the worst.

Thank you, Sackboy, our dear friend.