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PlayStation has been pushing live service games as its main development strategy for the last decade. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist as long-lasting online games like Fortnite, League of Legends, and Genshin Impact have tasted the fruit of their labor. The company even spend billions to acquire Bungie and other developers to make that dream a reality. However, making it big in the overcrowded market takes much more than just throwing money at a problem.
From our list below, PlayStation seems to have at least four live service games in development and has canceled eight infeasible projects. All things considered, it’s not surprising that Sony’s CEO decided to delay half of its games-as-a-service projects that were supposed to launch before March 2026.
1. Concord
- Status: Shut down, studio closed.
Who hasn’t heard of PlayStation’s $400 million bomb at this point? Launched on August 23, 2024, with little fanfare at $30, it barely managed to stay alive. It failed to garner over 700 concurrent players on Steam before PlayStation pulled the plug in just two weeks.
According to journalist Jeff Grubb in his Game Mess podcast, Sony has been ‘shell-shocked’ by Concord‘s failure. Currently launching a full damage control mode, the company is ‘reassessing’ every ongoing project and is canceling various live-service games.
2. Helldivers 2
- Status: Released.
So far, Arrowhead Games’ dark-horse is the only PlayStation game that saw the light at the end of the live service tunnel. While the space bug-hunting game has experienced ups and downs, it’s still enjoying a healthy player base and delivering constant updates. Hopefully, it will keep going strong years after its successful 2024 release.
3. The Last of Us Online
- Status: Canceled.
While The Last of Us is known as a thrilling single-player experience, there are die-hard fans who stand by the first game’s multiplayer mode. Naughty Dog was planning to please that part of the dedicated fanbase with a massive online component expansion to Part II in 2018. However, director Neil Druckmann eventually said that it grew beyond its initial scope and is being developed as a standalone release.
Fast forward to 2023, the studio said it had to choose between two paths. Either it becomes a ‘solely live service games studio’ or focuses on single-player narrative games that have defined ‘its heritage.’ Currently, the studio is busy working on Intergalactic to uphold its commitment to the latter.
4. Spider-Man: The Great Web
- Status: Canceled.
Playing as two different Spider-Men sounds like a great deal, but how about five? Insomniac Games reportedly was working on a cooperative beat-em-up Spider-Man live service game for the PlayStation 4. When the trailer was suddenly leaked, the news that the project had been quietly shelved also quickly spread all over the internet.
It’s such a shame too considering almost all PvE multiplayer games these days only allow four-player support. Between The Great Web and the canceled DLC roadmap for Spider-Man 2 — true to the Peter Parker experience — Spidey fans really couldn’t catch a break.
5. God of War Live Service
- Status: Canceled.
In a desperate move to push its live service strategy, PlayStation tried to enlist the help of Kratos himself. The company tasked Bluepoint Games, famous for its Demon’s Souls remake, to develop the game. The fanbase wasn’t particularly sure how the concept would work out, and maybe that’s why the project was scrapped in the first place.
Still, a multiplayer component wasn’t completely foreign to the series. God of War: Ascension had a couple of PvP modes with a class-based system. This online game project might’ve taken notes from the 2013 PS3 game.
6. Marathon
- Status: In progress.
Bungie might’ve lost the Halo franchise to the Xbox, but that doesn’t mean the studio only has Destiny for its sci-fi projects. Originally a Mac-exclusive FPS, the studio announced the series is getting a vaporwave-styled reboot into an extraction shooter in May 2023. Although there are rumors about its troubled development, director Joe Ziegler assured fans it is ‘still alive’ and aiming for a closed beta in 2025.
7. Payback
- Status: Canceled.
Speaking of Bungie, the studio also planned to make a third-person shooter Destiny spin-off. It is said that the game was heavily influenced by Warframe and Genshin Impact. But, after rounds of layoffs, the team decided to pursue an imminent project like Marathon instead. Still, on the bright side, Destiny: Rising spin-off for mobile from NetEase partnership might fill the hole it left behind.
8. Twisted Metal Live Service
- Status: Canceled.
A vehicular battle royale seemed like such a no-brainer concept for an online game, right? Well, PlayStation didn’t think so. The Liverpool-based Firesprite studio, which is manned by ex-Wipeout developers, was working on a Twisted Metal live service game. Until early 2024 when Sony let go of 900 staff from its video game division.
For some reason, the company never pursued this project again. Despite, again, the market severely lacked car-on-car royal rumble games and the TV show’s second season was greenlit in late 2023.
9. London Studio’s Unnamed Co-op Game
- Status: Canceled, studio closed.
London Studio is mostly known for developing supporting games for the console’s peripherals like PS VR and Eyetoy. In 2022 though, the studio announced it was finally planning its big breakout: a cooperative PVE game set in futuristic London.
Unfortunately, nothing came out of said reveal. To make things worse, London Studio was eventually shut down in May 2024, among the casualties in Sony’s massive firing of its 900 gaming workforce.
10. Deviation Games’ Unknown Multiplayer Game
- Status: Canceled, studio closed.
Founded by ex-Call of Duty Zombies developers in 2020, PlayStation announced its partnership during Summer Game Fest a year later. Unfortunately, we never learned what it was cooking even until the studio’s sudden closure in 2024.
11. Bend Studio’s Unknown Live Service Game
- Status: Canceled.
The Oregon-based studio started its humble beginnings by working on Bubsy 3D, until it made fan favorites like Syphon Filter and Days Gone. But when PlayStation rejected its proposal for a Days Gone sequel, it seems the development team was sent to the live service gulag. Said live service game was eventually canceled together with Bluepoint’s God of War online game in early 2025.
12. Gummy Bears
- Status: In progress.
It seems PlayStation doesn’t want its $3.6 billion investment to go to waste. Seeing Destiny‘s success, the company now appointed several key figures from Bungie to spearhead a Smash Bros-like MOBA project internally called Gummy Bears.
Reports said that it has been in development since three years ago, very easy to get into, and is considered the studio’s ‘most fun’ project. Let’s see if the developers aren’t just one-hit looter shooter wonder.
13. Fairgame$
- Status: In progress
Developed by Haven Studios, Fairgame$ is described as a PvPvE game where we pull off heists against corrupt billionaires. So far so good, but there has been no news after its debut teaser trailer in May 2023. Will it become a rags-to-riches success story? Or will it follow Concord‘s destructive path? For now, nobody knows for sure.
14. Horizon Online
- Status: In progress.
Last but not least, PlayStation is also leveraging the popular Horizon IP for its live service strategy. According to reports, Sony is spending significant manpower to realize this project. As long as it managed to deliver a unique take on the hunting genre, we’re on board with anything with robot dinosaurs in it.
That’s pretty much all we know of PlayStation 2010’s live service games plan. As seen above, many have been canceled, but some might just push through. Not to mention there are probably several other projects not yet revealed to the public. We will update this article as we learn more about their fate.
