"Spectre Divide: Free Shooter Closes Weeks Post-Console Launch"

The free-to-play 3v3 shooter Spectre Divide is set to be shut down just six months after its initial launch in September 2024, and mere weeks following its release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The game's developer, Mountaintop Studios, is also closing its doors. Mountaintop CEO Nate Mitchell confirmed the unfortunate news in a statement released on social media today, explaining that "the Season 1 launch hasn’t achieved the level of success we needed to sustain the game and keep Mountaintop afloat."

Spectre Divide Combat

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The team at Mountaintop was initially optimistic, noting that the game attracted around 400,000 players during its first week, with a peak concurrent count of approximately 10,000 across all platforms. However, Mitchell's statement continued, "But as time has gone on, we haven’t seen enough active players and incoming revenue to cover the day-to-day costs of Spectre and the studio. Since the PC launch, we stretched our remaining capital as far as we could, but at this point, we’re out of funding to support the game."

Despite their efforts to secure a publisher, additional investment, or an acquisition, Mountaintop was unable to find a solution. Mitchell added, "We pursued every avenue to keep going... In the end, we weren’t able to make it work. The industry is in a tough spot right now."

Spectre Divide will be taken offline within the next 30 days, and any money spent by players since the Season 1 launch will be refunded. This news contradicts earlier reports from October 2024, where Mitchell had stated that Spectre Divide "isn’t going anywhere," assuring that "the servers aren’t shutting down, and the updates aren’t going to stop," and claiming that Mountaintop had "the funds to support Spectre for a long time."

IGN’s positive preview of Spectre Divide in August 2024 praised the tactical 3v3 shooter for its innovative Duality system, which allowed players to control two characters during matches. However, the rapid shutdown of Spectre Divide adds to the growing list of live-service game disappointments, following the likes of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Sony’s Concord.