Tag Archives: Live Service

While Embark Studios have continuously updated ARC Raiders with new content and updates, general sentiment surrounding the popular extraction shooter has waned somewhat over the past months. As a result, the team have now announced that they are shifting their live-service plans, replacing smaller more consistent updates with “major updates twice a year.”

Following plenty of controversies, Bungie’s Marathon finally launched just over a month ago to solid reviews and a decent playercount. Whether or not the live-service extraction shooter is a success or not remains to be seen, with insiders claiming that the title cost over $200 million to develop – possibly $250 million.

Less than a year after its initial release, Remedy Entertainment have confirmed that the latest update for FBC: Firebreak will be its last.

The games industry analysts at NewZoo have revealed the top 20 most-played PC games of 2025, showing that the majority of playtime is concentrated across a select few long-running IPs like Counter Strike, Diablo, WoW, Call of Duty and more. 

What if BluePoint Games’ ill-fated multiplayer God of War project was able to come together and be released? What if most of Sony’s cancelled PS5 games found their way past the finish line? This is an ode to some of the live-service games we never got.

Over the past console generation, we’ve seen Sony embrace the notion of releasing some of its first-party titles to other platforms later on down the line – particularly on PC. While this has yielded some success, it seems the console maker might be going back towards exclusivity, with insiders claiming that future multi-platform releases might be limited to live-service titles.

Ever since Overwatch 2 officially launched, the game has seen a consistent drop in players, especially in the wake of Marvel Rivals’ massive success. With the announcement of Overwatch’s overhaul however, players began to flock back, with Steam concurrent player counts reaching new heights for the first time in years. With Season 1 now officially live however, CCU numbers have skyrocketed to more than double its previous peak.

Following a strong launch, the team at Embark have now released their latest roadmap for ARC Raiders, confirming major content updates on a monthly basis.

Bungie asked Destiny fans what they would like to see improved with the game from a lengthy list as part of a new exclusive player survey.

Following the likes of Genshin Impact, more live-service titles are reportedly set to be discontinued on last-gen consoles throughout 2026.

Under former CEO, Jim Ryan, PlayStation embarked on a mission to break into the live-service genre, spinning up over a dozen projects across its studios. Eventually, Sony spent billions to acquire Bungie to aid in this effort, but it only resulted in most of these projects being cancelled. Now, Sony's …

Despite not launching until next year, PlayStation appears confident in Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, claiming that they plan to support the title for a decade.

The day has finally come, with EA announcing that servers for Anthem will be going offline in January of 2026 - being no longer playable after that.

Despite publishers flocking to the upcoming Switch 2, Blizzard’s Diablo IV may not make it onto the system due to the “challenge” of live-service titles.

Following a long bout of silence in the wake of the initial Marathon teaser, Bungie looks set to finally give us a proper look at the game.

I often get emails in my inbox showcasing interesting stats about the games market, the titles dominating playtime and the threat they pose to other entertainment mediums, like video streaming services (Netflix, Disney+ etc). There is just one problem, these are often coming from online casino websites looking to boost …

Despite the game’s undeniable success, one of Marvel Rivals’ game directors has announced that he and others from his team have now been laid off.

As part of Sony’s live-service push from a couple years ago, the console maker announced Fairgame$ back in May of 2023: a “fresh, modern take on the heist genre”. While we did not get any concrete release window at the time, one leaker has now claimed that the game has been pushed from its internal release of 2025 to some time next year.

Following the massive success of Astro Bot, Sony has confirmed that they plan to release more single-player family games in the future.

The failure of Concord seems to have lit a fire under PlayStation, with Sony reportedly cancelling multiple live-service projects as a result of its reception.

With Season 1 of Marvel Rivals officially live, the team have now revealed their plans for future character roster updates – promising two per season.

While Sony has slowed down on some of its active live service game projects, cancelling a good number of them after acquiring Bungie, the company isn't bowing out of this market entirely yet. Concord's failure was not the final nail in the coffin, as confirmed by PlayStation's co-CEO, Herman Hulst. …

Following in the footsteps of Fortnite, it seems as though EA is considering adding a subscription service to Apex Legends.

With all the commotion going on at Bungie, the studio has been somewhat in disarray, with the Destiny maker’s future plans being influx. That said, according to a new report, the team’s upcoming extraction shooter Marathon might be a premium-priced game – costing the same as the ill-fated Concord. In …

Following the announcement that the live-service PlayStation Studios title ‘Concord’ is being removed from stores due to its immediate financial failure, many have wondered what this means for PlayStation’s other previously-announced live-service games. According to one industry insider, the Haven Studios-developed PvP heist shooter Fairgame$ has had “very positive” internal …

Concord is the next major gamble from PlayStation Studios. Set to arrive later this month, the multiplayer-focused live service hero shooter has not had the warmest of receptions during its beta period. That said, the team at Firewalk Studios appear to be committed for the long term – announcing their …

While the adoption of live service as a model for gaming only began to gain heavy traction a few years ago, there have for over a decade been plenty of examples of fruitful live-service experiences. One such success story is Digital Extremes’ Warframe. More than 11 years on from the …

The UK government has officially responded to a popular petition that has been doing the rounds recently. After Ubisoft shut down The Crew and actively removed the game from customer’s digital libraries, the Stop Killing Games campaign kicked off, asking the government to prevent games companies from making their games …

One of the biggest financial flops of the year so far has been Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Developed by Rocksteady, the game was criticised for its live-service elements – costing publisher Warner Bros. over $200 million in losses so far. Interestingly, unlike most live-service flops, the idea to …

Sony has been working on a number of ‘live service' projects at its studios for a while now. Some of these have been cancelled, like Naughty Dog's TLOU Factions 2, or Insomniac's promising-looking Spider-Man: The Great Web. Others have lived on, like the upcoming Horizon Zero Dawn multiplayer game. It …