Not too long ago, it felt like there was no escape from live-service games. Bethesda’s unveiling of Fallout 76 in 2018 felt like an ominous bellwether – was every iconic franchise now fated to transform into a forever game? Was ever-evolving multiplayer with seasonal content updates the way forward for our favourite RPGs and shooters?
Fast forward eight years and the landscape is looking very different. Major gaming publishers are cancelling live-service games left, right and centre, while many newcomers arrive on the scene only to pack up their bags and disappear within a few short months.
Some will, understandably, celebrate the apparent downturn of the live-service model. Others, meanwhile, will see this as cause for concern. The battle pass era has been a veritable financial feast for the video games industry’s revenue growth – if it disappears, does that profitable growth disappear along with it? For some, the problem is not the disappearance of “forever games”, but the reasons why the sector is contracting. And another group will even challenge the assertion that live-service is even disappearing at all.
Above all else, one thing is clear: there’s change on the horizon.
By the end of January this year, 15 of the 19 major new live-service games launched in 2025 had lost over 80% of their initial playerbase. Among them were big, recognisable, popular names, including Persona 5: The Phantom X, Runescape: Dragonwilds and Dune: Awakening. Leveraging known, beloved IP is no longer a surefire ticket to success, something Sega learned this year following weak performance of its free-to-play push, including the likes of mobile battle royale Sonic Rumble Party. This significant stall lead to Sega cancelling its mysterious 'Super Game'.
PlayStation has found itself in a similar situation. According to a recent Bloomberg report, the company has either halted or outright cancelled the development of over a dozen live-service games over the last decade. Many of these were linked to marquee IP like Spider-Man and God of War. Most recently, the controversial Horizon Hunters Gathering has been rebooted, with the aim of essentially ‘unmaking’ the live-service aspects and turning it into a traditional co-op game. This determination to make live-service work for Horizon means a new entry in the series’ core single-player series is reportedly still years away from release. It’s a similar story for gaming stalwart Naughty Dog, whose years spent on the ill-fated The Last of Us Online meant progress on its next major cinematic narrative game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, was slowed. TLOU Online was ultimately cancelled to prevent Naughty Dog transforming into a live-service studio, and the majority of that game’s developers moved over onto Intergalactic to allow for full-scale production.
It’s not just live-service newcomers that’re suffering, though; even the heavyweights are beginning to feel the squeeze. Newzoo’s latest gaming report showed a 27% decline in the battle royale sub-genre, with live-service heavyweights Fortnite and Apex Legends both suffering a drop in playtime growth of almost a quarter. Despite Marvel Rivals’ immense success, many of the top shooters also saw a drop-off of at least 15%, including Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Valorant. An even broader overview of the market reveals that the free-to-play model itself is in decline, with playtime on PC down 8%, PlayStation down 4% and Xbox down 11% in 2025 compared to 2024. It’s a small drop, but if it’s the start of a larger trend, the live-service model may be beginning to flatline.
So why the downturn? Ex-BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah, who helped guide the ill-fated Anthem to the finish line, thinks people may be finally realizing the gold rush is over. “I think there’s a glimmer of understanding that if you're making a looter shooter and it’ll be a ‘decent’ looter shooter, that’s not enough anymore,” he says.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/is-it-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-live-service-games
