All articles tagged with #live service
Former Arkane Austin leads Harvey Smith, Ben Horne, and Ricardo Bare to launch Black Pony Immersive, promising to avoid the live-service mistakes that doomed Redfall and instead pursue passion projects rooted in Deus Ex and Dishonored.
Guerrilla Games is scrapping the live-service model for Horizon Hunters Gathering and redesigning it as a traditional multiplayer game with a story mode and reduced scope; the overhaul began in June, staff are being reassigned with a December milestone, and a smaller team remains on a single-player sequel, as Sony contends with broader live-service challenges.
Bloomberg reports that Sony’s Horizon Hunters Gathering, a live-service spin-off of Horizon, is being redesigned to remove live-service elements in favor of a smaller cooperative multiplayer with a story mode after negative private playtest feedback. The game isn’t canceled yet, but most of the team is being reassigned and must convince executives by December; Sony has not publicly commented.
Guerrilla Games reportedly scales back Horizon Hunters Gathering from a live-service title to a traditional co-op game with a story mode after negative closed-test feedback, redeploying staff as the Horizon sequel remains years away. A separate Horizon multiplayer project for PC and mobile is handled by NCSoft, underscoring Sony’s ongoing, costly push into live-service games amid mixed results.
Horizon Hunters Gathering is reportedly being rebuilt from a live-service game into a smaller, story-led multiplayer co-op title by Guerrilla Games, with a December deadline to impress PlayStation, as Sony recalibrates its struggling live-service strategy.
Shigeru Miyamoto argues Nintendo stays resilient by prioritizing 'fun to play' over chasing trends, avoiding live-service games, and focusing on accessible hardware and experiences rather than specs—explaining why Nintendo stays out of the industry’s doom headlines while peers chase risky bets.
Windows Central reports Marathon’s Steam concurrent players have collapsed (roughly 6,000 at peak) compared with Destiny 2’s ~60,000, highlighting Bungie’s pivot from Destiny to Marathon, recent layoffs, and a declining valuation after Sony’s $3.6B acquisition. With Marathon’s game director Joseph Ziegler departed and a two-week limited PvE mode added to Marathon, the studio’s long-term future looks uncertain, potentially as a support studio rather than a leading live-service developer.
Ubisoft says it will reduce reliance on new game launches and instead emphasize its back catalog and live-service offerings to drive revenue, as part of a broader restructuring and cost-cutting program aimed at delivering sustainable performance in a competitive market.
At TennoCon 2026, Warframe’s Rebecca Ford described Destiny 2’s sudden sunset as horrible and terrifying, highlighting how business decisions can strip developers of control over their own endings; the piece frames Destiny 2’s end as a caution for live-service games, even as Warframe presses on with new projects.
Two Rocksteady developers discuss the troubled development of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, revealing how live-service ambitions, crunch, and budget pressures derailed the project and nearly drove them from the industry; the game flopped commercially and critically, with Warner Bros reportedly absorbing about $200 million in losses, and the studio has since shifted toward other Batman titles and new live-service efforts.
Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden argues that Sony’s PC ports expanded the brand and reached new audiences without costing console sales, and warns that retreating from this strategy could undermine the hardware-driven business. He supports staggered PC releases for monetizing non-console fans while keeping console exclusives to drive hardware adoption, and cautions that day-and-date PC launches could commoditize the brand.
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino says PlayStation will revitalize live-service games by mixing first-party and third-party content, emphasizing ongoing updates and long-term support, including the upcoming Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, while noting lessons from past missteps and Bungie workforce changes.
Sony Interactive Entertainment president Hideaki Nishino reaffirmed the company’s commitment to live-service games, saying the genre is still relatively new and warrants ongoing experimentation across first- and third-party titles. He noted Sony will continue to evolve the market by reviving older titles and releasing a new live-service game, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, this year, signaling a continued push despite past cancellations and industry shifts around studios like Bungie.
PlayStation plans to expand its live-service slate with more first- and third-party content and ongoing updates, aiming to revitalize the market. Sony president Hideaki Nishino says live-service titles can attract players worldwide, with continued content drops and new initiatives, while single-player games remain a first-party focus and PS5/PC are the key platforms.
Sony confirms it will keep pushing live-service games through the PS5 era, planning PC releases to maximize player counts while keeping single-player first‑party titles console‑exclusive. The company also teases a PlayStation 6 handheld and continues to develop portable play experiences (like the PlayStation Portal) to suit evolving gamer lifestyles and hardware challenges.