Sony Cancels Fairgames: Haven Studios Stays Open With No Layoffs, Here's What Sony Said

Sony has cancelled Fairgames. It was the online heist shooter Haven Studios in Montreal had been making for PS5 and PC since before it was even shown off. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier broke the news on November 10, and PlayStation confirmed it.

Rumours about this game going badly have been around for months. This time it's official.

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What Sony said

The reason comes from an internal email by PlayStation Studios executives Sean Decker and John Doyle, reported by Bloomberg. The short version: people tried it, and not enough of them stuck around.

The email says "player feedback and retention results were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set," and that the company has "made the difficult decision to cease development on the game." It also points to "challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre."

It wasn't all bad, to be fair. The same email says the latest test showed "strong operational excellence, live ops readiness and community engagement." So the servers worked and the people who played were into it. There just weren't enough of them, and they didn't keep coming back. For a live service game, that's the whole ballgame.

What happens to Haven

Here's the good news, if there is any: no layoffs. A PlayStation spokesperson said there won't be job cuts because of the cancellation. Haven stays open.

In PlayStation's words, the studio "will shift its focus to collaborating with other development teams across PlayStation Studios, while also exploring new creative opportunities." In plain English, Haven becomes a support studio that helps on other PlayStation games for now. Sony hasn't said whether it will get its own project again, or what it's working on next.

What the testers said

This is the part that sank it. The most recent playtest had thousands of players, and Sony's own email says the feedback was mixed and retention fell short of what they wanted.

There were reports earlier this year about rough internal playtests, but those came from anonymous sources and Sony never confirmed them, so we're not going to repeat them here. What's confirmed is Sony's own verdict: not enough players liked it enough to keep playing.

A quick look back

Fairgames was first shown at the PlayStation Showcase in May 2023, the same show where Helldivers 2 was announced. It was Haven's first game. The studio was founded by Jade Raymond, who used to be a big name at Ubisoft, and Sony bought Haven in 2022.

It was a rough road after that. Sony pushed the game to 2026, Jade Raymond left the studio in 2025, and the game director left too. Sony never gave it a release date. Now it won't get one.

Sony's live service plan keeps shrinking

A few years ago Sony talked about launching a whole wave of live service games. A lot of them never made it. Concord launched in 2024 and was shut down after about two weeks. The Last of Us Online was cancelled, along with live service projects at Bluepoint and Bend, and a Twisted Metal one. Fairgames is the latest to go.

This also isn't the only thing Sony has pulled back on this week. It's shutting down the PlayStation Plus app on PC on December 10 because fewer than 0.4% of Premium members used it. Different kind of service, same idea: if not enough people use it, it goes.

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Which Sony live service games are still going

Not everything is dead. These are still running:

• Helldivers 2. The big success story. Arrowhead is still putting out new Warbonds, and it's on PS5, PC and Xbox.
• Marathon. Bungie's extraction shooter came out in March 2026. Its next big update, Symbiosis, was pushed from September to December 8, and Bungie dropped its fixed season schedule.
• Destiny 2. Still running at Bungie, which Sony owns.

Funny enough, Marathon is also an extraction shooter, which is the genre Fairgames reportedly moved toward. Sony already has one of those, and it's having a hard enough time.

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If you're looking for an online shooter on PS5 that's actually alive and doing well, Helldivers 2 is still the one. It's a lot better with friends, so a decent wireless headset for chat makes a real difference. And if you're getting a friend into it, a spare DualSense controller helps when they come over.

FAQ

Is Fairgames cancelled?

Yes. Sony cancelled it on November 10, 2026, after a playtest where player feedback and retention fell short of its goals.

Did Haven Studios have layoffs?

No. PlayStation says there are no job cuts. Haven will help other PlayStation Studios teams and look at new projects.

Will Fairgames come out under a different name?

No. Sony says it has stopped development on the game.