is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
Sony has canceled Fairgames, a heist game announced in 2023, according to Bloomberg. Fairgames had once been part of Sony’s big planned push for PlayStation live service games, but the company ended up canceling some planned live service titles, including in the God of War and The Last of Us franchises, and it shut down Concord shortly after its failed launch.
The Fairgames cancellation won’t result in job cuts, and developer Haven Studios will now support other PlayStation studios, Bloomberg reports. The game was canceled following a recent test where “player feedback and retention results were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set,” according to part of an executive memo published by Bloomberg, which also cited “challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre.” Sony acquired Haven Studios in 2022.
Sony’s live service efforts have seen some success with Helldivers 2, which is also available on Xbox. Bungie’s Marathon, which launched this year, has had a rough start, but today the studio showed off some new features coming in a December update, including a new co-op PvE roguelite mode and a PvP deathmatch mode. Sony is also working on a live service Horizon spinoff, but recently rebooted it.
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