Sony has cancelled Fairgames, the PvP heist game Haven Studios announced in 2023, after a recent playtest produced results that fell short of the goals set for it, according to a Bloomberg report carried on 10 November by The Verge.
The decision was given to Haven employees in an email from the PlayStation executives Sean Decker and John Doyle, part of which Bloomberg published. “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,” the two wrote.
The email also cited “challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre” and said that, combined with the test results, those conditions led to the “difficult decision to cease development on the game.” Sony acquired Haven Studios in 2022, a year before Fairgames was revealed.
The playtest behind the decision
Polygon, which also carried the report on 10 November, said Fairgames had been reworked more than once since its 2023 reveal. The game, styled Fairgame$, was shown that year in a reveal trailer, and PC Gamer said nothing more of it was ever seen.
Work on the project appears to have started before the announcement. PC Gamer reported that development began in 2021, the year Haven Studios was formed. Polygon said Fairgames would have been the studio’s debut game.
The test described in the memo was a recent large-scale one, and PC Gamer, citing Bloomberg, said it produced results similar to an earlier external playtest. The excerpt published by Bloomberg sets the operational side of the trial, which the executives praised, against the player-facing results, which they said were mixed.
No job cuts at Haven Studios
A Sony representative told Bloomberg that the cancellation will not lead to job cuts. Haven “will shift its focus to collaborating with other development teams across PlayStation Studios, while also exploring new creative opportunities,” the representative said. The Verge reported that the studio will now support other PlayStation studios.
Haven was founded in 2021 by Jade Raymond, the former Assassin’s Creed producer who had led Google Stadia Games and Entertainment, Polygon reported. PC Gamer said the studio was set up a couple of months after her split with Stadia and was working on an unannounced new property for PlayStation. Sony bought Haven outright the following year.
Raymond has since left the studio. PC Gamer reported that she departed in 2025, reportedly after an external playtest left PlayStation leadership “concerned about how the game was received and its progress.”
Haven is left without an announced project. The statement given to Bloomberg named no replacement title, setting out only collaboration with other PlayStation Studios teams and work on new creative opportunities.
Sony’s live-service push
Sony set out a live-service strategy in 2022. Polygon put the stated target at at least 10 such games by 2026, while PC Gamer cited the then PlayStation chief, Jim Ryan, talking about 12 by 2025. PC Gamer reported that seven of the planned games were cancelled before release.
Those included a multiplayer The Last of Us game and a live-service God of War game, Polygon reported, while Concord was taken offline less than two weeks after launch and never returned, according to PC Gamer, which said the failure appeared to prompt Sony to begin reversing its live-service strategy a few months later. Polygon said PlayStation studios working on live-service games, among them London Studios, Firewalk Studios and Bluepoint Games, were shut down in recent years.
A live-service Horizon spin-off, Hunters Gathering, was recently rebooted after negative feedback from testers, Polygon and PC Gamer reported, a situation Polygon said sounded not too dissimilar to Fairgames. The Verge described Fairgames as PlayStation’s latest cancellation as the company steps back from many of its live-service efforts.
Parts of the push have worked. The Verge said Sony has had some success with Helldivers 2, which is also available on Xbox, and Polygon named Gran Turismo 7 as a steady live-service performer.
Elsewhere on the platform, Sony and Microsoft have each said Grand Theft Auto VI is the most pre-ordered title in their own stores’ history, ahead of its 19 November launch. Sony’s hardware line around the console also includes the PlayStation Portal remote player.
Bungie’s Marathon, which launched this year, has had a rough start, The Verge reported. The studio has shown features coming in a December update, including a co-operative player-versus-environment roguelite mode and a PvP deathmatch mode.