Second major live service game of the week put out to pasture-Michael Beckwith-Entertainment – Metro

The party never ends… except when it does (Square Enix)

It’s not being shut down yet, but another live service game, this one from Square Enix, will stop seeing updates less than a year after it came out.

There was a time when live service games were lucky to last a year, but now it seems to have reached a point where they can’t even be sustained for that long.

You’re probably already familiar with Sony’s shocking decision to pull Concord from sale just two weeks after launch. Then, earlier this week, Ubisoft announced it was giving up on its online shooter, XDefiant after less than seven months.

Now, two days later, it looks like Square Enix is calling it quits on Foamstars, the not-Splatoon game that launched for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 back in February of this year.

Is Foamstars shutting down?

Announced on Square Enix’s website, Foamstar’s next season (ironically titled Party Goes On) will be its last. It begins next week on December 13 and runs until January 17, 2025, after which there will be no further seasonal updates or new content.

Fortunately for Foamstars, it faces a better fate than either Concord or XDefiant. There’s been no mention of layoffs at developer Toylogic (at least not yet) and what fans the game does have will be able to keep playing for the foreseeable future.

Events will still take place on a regular basis and previous season passes will be made available again.

That said, the online servers will need to be shut down eventually; it’s just a matter of when. Keeping those up costs money and we doubt Square Enix will be happy spending that sort of cash on something it’s not supporting anymore and was never very popular in the first place.

A letter from producer Kosuke Okatani tries to focus on the positives, as he thanks fans for their support. ‘Thanks to all of you, we’ve managed to successfully complete every update we had planned,’ it reads.

‘We’ve been able to reach this point because of your warm support. On behalf of the entire team, I’d like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude.’

Was Foamstars a failure?

No doubt Square Enix would have pushed for further updates had Foamstars proved as popular as something like Helldivers 2. According to TrueTrophies, which can track player data across active PlayStation accounts, Foamstars had lost almost 95% of its player base barely two months after it launched.

Going free-to-play did help to boost player numbers, but TrueTrophies suggests that the number of people playing only went up by 48% in October, meaning it still couldn’t reach the highs of its February launch.

Perhaps part of the blame can be laid on its PlayStation exclusivity. Both Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth launched as PlayStation 5 exclusives and ultimately failed to meet Square Enix’s sales expectations.

It’s not surprising that Square Enix is opting for more multiplatform releases going forward, though whether it will take another crack at a dedicated live service game is another question entirely, especially when it also has the disastrous Babylon’s Fall under its belt.

However, the most likely reason is that, like other publishers, Square Enix’s expectations were simply too high for Foamstars to succeed. The market is already dominated by games such as Fortnite and Apex Legends, making it extremely difficult for any new blood to get their foot in the door, let alone reach the same level of popularity.

Despite these successive failures though publishers are, at least publicly, insisting that their enthusiasm for live service titles remains undiminished. That’s what Sony said after the failure of Concord and Warner Bros. after the disaster of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.

Carrying on regardless was also the first thing Ubisoft promised to do after it shut down XDefiant and made 277 developer redundant. So while live service titles continue to rack up flop after flop, there’s still little real sign that publishers are abandoning the concept.

Fans can keep enjoying Foamstars, but for how much longer? (Square Enix)

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

ArrowMORE: Square Enix accused of abusing copyright law to silence fan criticism

ArrowMORE: Sony shuts down live service and mobile studios after Concord flop

ArrowMORE: Concord was the 347th best-selling video game in August as PS5 console sales fall by half

Entertainment – MetroRead More