Still, Japan Studios participated in the og Demon's Souls, how much?? Hard to say...

We know that Bloodborne had a major participation of Japan Studios, there are many interviews that prove it. That said, we don't if the same is true with Demon's Souls, but it would be unfair to exclude Japan Studios...

Yeah, kinda of a grey area...

And the Remake... Well, Bluepoint participation reinforce Sony first party presence. The fucking line becomes even more blurry and grey.

I'll try to boot up a solo play for all 3 kinds of modes later and let you know if I can play solo, as every time I choose to match with other people instead, up until now. I'm not sure if it works without PS+ tho. Free games do, but it is not a free game tho, and it's built inside GoY and not a separated "purchase".

Yeah, PS+ is expensive, sadly.

Edit: I can confirm you can indeed play all 3 modes solo, but well... aside from the Story mode I REALLY recommend you not to. You get no help whatsoever so Incursions will be insane in the boss fights alone, and Survival, well, pretty much impossible unless you go do silver levels when you have platinum level gear, you'll always lose 2 of the 3 bases as you can only be once at a time, so aside from Story you really won't get anything good out of it if not matching with other players.

Raids should be even worse to try alone once they release too.

With Sony owning the IP and Japan Studios co-developing it, I consider both Demon's Souls and Bloodborne as Sony second party games.

Death Strading would be a trickier one, Sony owned the IP originally for 1, it is supposedly sold to Kojima now right before 2 released, Kojima Productions developed both but both were developed on a Sony engine, Decima from Guerilla Games, which they certainly helped him a lot with if they never participated in any kind of creative decision I would suppose.

I always considered that one second party but if Sony did sell the IP at least 2 may be considered thrid party.