Sony cancels last live service game in development as PS5 sales pass 100 million

Résumé détaillé

Sony's live service era finally seems to be over, just as PS5 console sales reach a massive milestone.

Sony’s live service era finally seems to be over, just as PS5 console sales reach a massive milestone.

While the PlayStation 5 has undoubtedly been a success for Sony, this generation is certain to be remembered as the era of wasted potential.

There have been notable first party games from Sony, like Returnal and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, but these have been few and far between, partially thanks to the company’s unrelenting pursuit of a live service hit.

This has led to historic flops and a slew of cancelled projects, and now another live service corpse has been thrown onto the fire. Seemingly the last such game currently in development at a first-party Sony studio.

As reported by Bloomberg, Fairgames (originally styled Fairgame$) has been cancelled by Sony. The heist shooter, developed by Haven Studios, was originally announced in 2023 and underwent various reworks over the years, with plans to re-reveal it under a new name.

According to the report, Sony cancelled the shooter following ‘mixed’ feedback during a recent playtest. An email, sent by PlayStation executives Sean Decker and John Doyle to employees, reportedly read: ‘While the test demonstrated strong operational excellence, live ops readiness and community engagement, player feedback and retention results were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set.

‘Combined with challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre, we have made the difficult decision to cease development on the game.’

A spokesperson for PlayStation told the outlet there will be no job cuts at Haven Studios as a result of the cancellation. The studio will instead ‘shift its focus to collaborating with other development teams across PlayStation Studios, while also exploring new creative opportunities’.

If you don’t count the MMO Horizon Steel Frontiers (developed by NCSoft), Fairgames is Sony’s last known live service project.

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