According to a new report by Bloomberg (paywalled), Fairgames (stylised as “Fairgame$) has been cancelled.
This was a game developed under Haven Studios, which publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment (i.e. PlayStation) acquired in 2022.
Fairgames was revealed in 2023, alongside a slew of other multiplayer live-service games. This was supposed to be a heist game in the extraction shooter format.
“The studio will shift its focus to collaborating with other development teams across PlayStation Studios, while also exploring new creative opportunities,” a statement by PlayStation to Bloomberg reads. No layoffs or studio closure is happening at the moment, at least.
Two reasons were given for the cancellation. One is that “player feedback and retention results were mixed” according to an internal email. The other is the “challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre.”
With the game’s cancellation, players who did take part in the private tests have come out with some impressions of what supposed to be Fairgames. Based on Push Square’s report, it’s definitely a mixed bag. One described it as “a PowerPoint deck of executive ideas.”
PlayStation had way too many multiplayer live service games in development, some of them not even publicly announced, with most of them ended up being cancelled. This includes a multiplayer mode to accompany The Last Of Us Part II, a multiplayer Spider-Man game by Insomniac, a live-service God Of War game by Bluepoint Studios (which led to the closure of the studio), a cancelled game by Dark Outlaw Games, to name a few. The previously announced Horizon Hunters Gathering is now currently being reworked.
Most infamously, the hero shooter Concord only lasted two weeks before the game is discontinued and servers went offline.
PlayStation did hit it big with one big live service game: Helldivers 2. But attempts to capture that big multiplayer fanbase has not gone well since.
Even Bungie, makers of the popular live service series of games Destiny, has been floundering as of late, but things are looking more positive currently under new management as both Destiny 2 and Marathon continues to be worked on.
PlayStation has yet to publicly and officially announced the cancellation of Fairgames. But with little to no hype surrounding the game since its reveal, it’s probably fair game to just quietly forget about it.