this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
322 points (98.2% liked)

Games

46926 readers
1861 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Archived article: https://archive.md/HONwC

They'll release one more update (my guess is whatever release-ready content they've already got), then the servers will shut down next Thursday.

"We don't need player counts to be super huge in order to be successful" is starting to ring hollow.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 13 hours ago

Which one was that? The horses one?

[–] me_myself_and_I@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

Lightning in a bottle, eh?

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Shame. The trailer looked really good, and if they'd had time to learn and improve from the feedback it could have really been something.

[–] Mistic@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Ironic, considering the trailer is one of the things that was heavily criticized.

It looked very generic and didn't tell you much about the game.

I believe it was also revealed at some point that it was thrown together in a very short period of time because they didn't expect to need it then.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 day ago (4 children)

released [...] on January 26, 2026. The studio has announced that the game will be shutting down on March 12, 2026.

What the fuck is happening in "triple-a" game dev world?

[–] leniwcowaty@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The best part - they tried to pretend they're not AAA. They portrayed themselves as small, indie, self-publishing studio, whereas behind curtains the stream of money from Tencent was wide as a river

[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It worked for Dave the Diver.

[–] DeadDigger@lemmy.zip 1 points 9 hours ago

Except the studio behind Dave the diver is very vocal about not being indi - it's just the graphics so everyone assumes it

[–] Jako302@feddit.org 12 points 1 day ago

These games are build with a budged so high they either have to rival overwatch in its glory days or they get scrapped and written off as a loss since they will never be profitable.

Triple A studios have arrived in the corporate world a while ago were long term profits are irrelevant if your quarterly earnings aren't what the investors want.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Gambling, pretty much. They go all in on a bet that it will explode and make tons of money, take out loans based on that expectation, setting themselves in a position where either it is a major success or it is an utter failure, no in between.

The gaming market is so saturated these days that it's kinda baffling this approach is still being taken. Like I hadn't even heard of this game before this.

[–] GameOverFlow@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

It is working for overwatch, why is it not working for me? I want to be like cs2.

[–] sonofearth@lemmy.world 53 points 1 day ago (5 children)

If it’s unsustainable for you, release the server and game source code for someone else to host it and patch it. Why waste developers’ time and effort into making of this game?!

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It's insane that this isn't a requirement for shutting down/delisting a game.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That's literally what the "stop killing games" movement was/is pushing for, at least in Europe. Really hope it goes somewhere, but it's kind of stopped making noise lately (at least that I'm hearing), what with the US speed-running fascism more and more every single week.

[–] BurgerBaron@piefed.social 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

SKG (archived on their own YT channel not Ross) did a press conference recently and various politicals were there siding with the movement. It's still slow but ongoing progress.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 2 points 17 hours ago

That's good to hear.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As I knew it, it was about releasing binaries/selfhostability not source code.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

Ah, good point, it didn't require source code release so much as self-hostability in some form.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

I'm convinced it is some sort of insurance fraud a la The Producers. They found a way to make more money by flopping HARD than getting middling success, and flopping hard is a LOT LESS work. If their choice is A) spend a lot of money and time making a really good game that will capture the attention of the entire market; or B) spend a bit of money and time making something that looks convincingly like a real attempt at making a good game to some corpo-fuckwits at an insurance company and then nuke it hours after release... Well. Yea, they'll do the second one.

[–] Killer57@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

From how I understand it, TenCent pulled funding in the studio as soon as the game didn't hit its metric goals, they fired all but 11 people working on the game last month. If they have time to Port it, that would be awesome to make it open source, but I have a feeling the skeleton crew left probably doesn't have the ability.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Dogiedog64@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"How could Gamers™️ DO THIS????" they'll scream, as their mediocre slopfest crashes and burns. Maybe they should've read the room a bit better before releasing Generic Hero Shooter #846169592.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

They should have learned from Marvel Rivals and used an already well-known IP and all the thighs and tits they can get their hands on. You can't just make a shitty game and expect it to sell, you have to manipulate your players into thinking it's more than just a shitty game

[–] Jagarico@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Make one in final fantasy setting with its characters and I'm sold! Not a good things, but you're 100% correct!

[–] underscores@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 hours ago

No! Square Enix please don't jump on another game trend your weird NFT mobile slop games have already done irreparable damage to your image! (also pls invest more budget in FFXIV)

/slightly joking idrc what SE does

[–] Solemarc@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago

Who could've seen this coming?

Yet another live service game shooting for the moon and not even lasting a month.

[–] kittykillinit@lemy.lol 17 points 1 day ago

"Why aren't people dumping thousands of hours into our video game while the economy is in the toilet?"

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 147 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Hey... At least it lasted longer than Concord. 🤷‍♂️

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 94 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)
[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I do feel slightly bad for the dev team. A lotta stuff outside their control spun things out of hand; but I also don't think it would have had any success regardless of the whole situation. At least what happened got it some attention and gave it a chance.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 66 points 2 days ago (2 children)

By "dev team", I'm guessing you mean the artists, designers, programmers, and testers; the people who spent the last five or so years actually creating the game. Yes, it sucks for them. Their years of work have effectively been thrown in the trash because of Wildlight's management. I hope they find better work soon, and I hope the management become personae non gratae in the industry.

[–] nfreak@lemmy.ml 30 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Honestly it's the same thing with Concord, and it's part of why it sucks to hear a lot of shit talk toward the devs of these games. Anyone who's actually tried either game could tell the dev teams really did put their all into it and wanted to make something interesting and fun, but you can feel the c-suite decisions and live service bullshit weighing them down. Like if the game isn't an instant hit, it gets shut down, and all that work thrown away. It really fucking sucks for the folks who actually put the work in.

I feel like the exact same thing's gonna happen with Marathon too. Playtest this week was met with pretty mixed results, people either loved it or hated it. The actual devs are incredible, and having spent far too much time with D2 before dropping it, I've gotten to know a few folks on the team and can really vouch for them. But I can't vouch for their management whatsoever, and they're the reason I dropped that game entirely and will never touch another Bungie game. I have zero faith in Bungie management keeping this one alive.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

3.2 Concords almost sounds good. For comparison, Black Ops 2 is currently at 347 Concords, and Team Fortress 2 is at 480

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago

Not as glamorous if you consider that Liz Truss lasted 3.5 Concords in office, and a rotting head of lettuce exceeded even that.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 2 days ago

What a waste, make all these people spend years of their lives building a whole videogame and then immediately make it impossible for anyone to ever play it again. A company shouldn't have the right to erase a game from existence, even if it is a bad one.

[–] Tempus_Fugit@lemmy.world 90 points 2 days ago (4 children)

That's crazy. I guess it's good practice to never pick up live service games because you'll be rolling the dice. I'm glad I pretty much play single player games exclusively.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I genuinely wouldn‘t say so. The game shuts down because nobody played it anyway. The chances you pick up a game no one plays is pretty slim by nature. But even if you have been burned in the past you can just pick up one that is already popular.

Pre-ordering on the other hand is rarely a good idea and that goes for any game, not just live service.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Every live service shuts down because not enough people were playing, eventually. Even ones I loved. I've got multiplayer games from 25 years ago that I can still play, but I can't still play the ones from 10 years ago.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] thlibos@thelemmy.club 18 points 2 days ago

What's Highguard?

[–] mrfriki@lemmy.world 54 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Marathon next? Place your bets ladies and gentlemen!

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 44 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (12 children)

Marathon is probably life or death for Bungie. Sony can't exactly afford to put out a mid game after spending so much on the studio... and "mid" is exactly what Marathon felt like. Just like so many copycats during the battle royale boom.

I don't think it will fail (or if it does, not as hard as Highguard), but unless it manages to stand out from the Tarkov/Arc Raiders/Hunt: Showdown oligopoly, it won't bring in the numbers to please Sony.

load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] TwinTitans@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

God am I sick of all this games as a service season pass loot box shit.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Prox@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Honestly, I think gaming is done with new live service offerings.

Live service used to be a way to get a core-complete, feature-limited games in front of players earlier than if they were fully baked. This was actually good for everyone, as player feedback often guided roadmaps and changes. But now everyone expects every new game to be better than Fortnite, Overwatch, etc. on day one. This just won't ever happen.

Also, the gaming community of today is OBSESSED with popularity numbers (steam concurrents and twitch view count, mostly), and if players don't see that everyone else is playing a game then they won't play either. This is fucking dumb, but we are where we are.

And don't even get me started on gaming news and influencers, who seem like they love to hate. They bitch about being stuck with CoD, then shit on anything that could someday compete with it. It's baffling.

[–] Supervisor194@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And yet Helldivers 2 comes out in 2024 and sets the world on fire. Seems to me that gaming is perfectly fine with live service as long as it's in line with community expectations and not s soulless cash grab.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 days ago
  • adds account level progression and skill trees
  • game shuts down forever in a week

🤦

load more comments
view more: next ›