Even with $60 million invested and support from Shroud, FPS Spectre Divide will be shut down after the first season fails to cover basic costs.

Yet another multiplayer game falls victim to the harsh reality of the games as a service market. This time, it's Spectre Divide, a 3v3 tactical FPS, which after a few months of life and a first season with numbers below expectations, will shut down its servers — taking down the Mountaintop Studios with it, as the studio also announced its closure.

Despite over $60 million in investments and massive support from influential figures like Shroud, Spectre Divide was unable to maintain a sustainable player base, even after releasing versions for PC, Xbox, and PS5. In an official statement this week, CEO Nate Mitchell confirmed that the game will cease to operate within 30 days, with guaranteed refunds for purchases made since the beginning of the first season, while new transactions were immediately suspended.

"Just two weeks ago we launched Spectre Divide Season 1: Flashpoint, and we are extremely grateful for the positivity and support you have shown in this short period," said Mitchell. "Unfortunately, the launch of the first season did not achieve the necessary success to sustain the game and keep Mountaintop running."

The CEO revealed that the game reached around 400,000 unique players, with simultaneous peaks of 10,000 players, but the declining curve of active users and the low revenue generated compromised the operations:

"We were able to attract many players initially, but this was not enough to cover the daily costs of keeping Spectre alive and the studio standing," he explained.

According to Mitchell, the team tried everything to keep the project going:

"We sought publishers, new investments, even considered selling the studio, but in the end, we couldn't find a viable way out. The industry is going through a very difficult time right now."

The Mountaintop Studios, formed by industry veterans and presented as a passionate indie team, aimed to create something innovative in the hero shooter genre, combining unique mechanics — like the system where the player controlled two characters simultaneously, something rare even among modern competitive games.

"We wanted something original, that brought friends together in memorable moments. We knew from the start that the odds were against us, but we accepted the challenge," concluded Mitchell.

The collapse of Spectre Divide marks another chapter in the games as a service crisis, which has brought down projects of all sizes. In recent years, we saw Concord from PlayStation become a laughing stock after lukewarm trailers, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League from Warner Bros. fail in sales despite the weight of the DC Comics brand. Others, like XDefiant from Ubisoft, also face great difficulties in finding space in an oversaturated market.

The live service model requires not only a large initial investment, but also an engaged community, constant updates, and an efficient monetization strategy, something that few can achieve — especially in a scenario where players are fought over by dozens of multiplayer releases every two months.

For now, players who embarked on Spectre Divide can at least count on a refund. But the game's story serves as a warning for the market: it's not enough to have money and streaming stars, you need to win and maintain a loyal base.

Thus, Spectre Divide joins the growing cemetery of ambitious FPS and hero shooter projects that never really took off. And the future of games as a service, especially those seeking space among giants like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Valorant, seems more uncertain than ever.