Haven Studios' PS5 live service game Fairgames appears to be in trouble again. According to Push Square, the title received a harsh response during a recent pre-alpha playtest, adding yet another chapter to what has been a rocky road since the game's 2023 reveal.
The reception at reveal was already a warning sign - Push Square notes the game landed worse with audiences than Concord, the ill-fated Sony live service shooter that launched and was taken offline within weeks of release. That Fairgames is still in development despite that initial response is notable on its own.
A difficult hill to climb
Negative pre-alpha feedback isn't automatically a death sentence - games can and do improve significantly between early testing and launch. But Fairgames has a compounding problem: the negative sentiment has been baked in since day one, meaning the game needs to dramatically exceed expectations just to land somewhere in neutral territory with potential players.
Haven Studios was founded by Jade Raymond, a well-regarded producer behind the original Assassin's Creed, so the pedigree is there. The studio was acquired by Sony in 2022 and has been building Fairgames as a PlayStation exclusive live service title centered around heist gameplay. The concept has potential on paper, but paper and pre-alpha are two very different things.
Sony's live service track record under scrutiny
This comes at an uncomfortable time for Sony's live service push. Concord became one of the most high-profile live service failures in recent memory, and while Helldivers 2 showed the platform holder can absolutely hit big in this space, the gap between success and failure in the genre has never been more visible. Every stumble from a Sony-backed live service project invites immediate comparisons to that shutdown.
There's still time for Fairgames to course-correct - pre-alpha builds are, by definition, early and unfinished. But the pattern of negative responses dating back nearly two years makes the recovery task significantly harder. Players have already formed impressions, and first impressions in live service are notoriously sticky.
No release date for Fairgames has been confirmed. Whether Sony and Haven Studios share additional details or footage soon to get ahead of the narrative remains to be seen.
