Another one of PlayStation’s live-service games has crashed and burned, as Fairgames, the company’s online shooter that was being developed by first-party PlayStation developer Haven Studios, has been canceled.
As reported by Bloomberg, Haven Studios isn’t undergoing any layoffs as a result of the cancelation, as “the studio will shift its focus to collaborating with other development teams across PlayStation Studios, while also exploring new creative opportunities,” according to a statement provided to the publication by PlayStation. The decision comes after Fairgames‘ recent playtest didn’t live up to Sony’s internal expectations.
“While the test demonstrated strong operational excellence, live ops readiness and community engagement, player feedback and retention results were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set,” PlayStation executives Sean Decker and John Doyle wrote in an email to employees and verified by Bloomberg. “Combined with challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre, we have made the difficult decision to cease development on the game.”
Fairgames was initially announced back in 2023, and was originally being led by Jade Raymond, known as a producer of the early Assassin’s Creed games. Raymond left Haven Studios in 2025, though the project quietly continued development. We really haven’t heard much about the game since it was initially unveiled.
Haven Studios was initially founded in 2021, and Sony acquired the company in 2022 before it had even put out a game. Now, it sounds like those who had been working on Fairgames will support the development of other games by PlayStation studios.
Fairgames is the latest in a long line of live-service disasters for Sony as the company continues to greenlight and then cancel its various attempts at forever games. Perhaps most famously, the company removed multiplayer shooter Concord from storefronts and then subsequently shut down its developer, Firewalk Studios.
Despite all this, Sony is still adamant that live-service games are an important part of PlayStation’s future.
