Just six months after its debut in September 2024, the free-to-play 3v3 tactical shooter *Spectre Divide* is set to be discontinued, shortly following its release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The game's developer, Mountaintop Studios, will also be shutting down. This news was officially confirmed by Mountaintop CEO Nate Mitchell via a statement on social media.
Mitchell expressed that despite a promising start, the launch of Season 1 failed to meet the necessary benchmarks to keep both the game and the studio operational. "Unfortunately, the Season 1 launch hasn’t achieved the level of success we needed to sustain the game and keep Mountaintop afloat," he stated in the post.
Spectre Divide Combat
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The initial week of *Spectre Divide* saw an optimistic start, with the game drawing around 400,000 players and reaching a peak concurrent count of approximately 10,000 across all platforms. However, Mitchell noted, "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."
The studio explored various avenues to sustain operations, including seeking a publisher, additional investment, and potential acquisition. Unfortunately, none of these efforts panned out. "We pursued every avenue to keep going, including finding a publisher, additional investment, and/or an acquisition. In the end, we weren’t able to make it work. The industry is in a tough spot right now," Mitchell lamented.
*Spectre Divide* will cease operations within the next 30 days, and Mountaintop Studios has promised to refund any in-game purchases made by players since the launch of Season 1.
This development contradicts earlier statements made by Mitchell in October 2024, where he assured that *Spectre Divide* "isn’t going anywhere," emphasizing that the servers would remain active and updates would continue, with Mountaintop possessing "the funds to support Spectre for a long time."
IGN's August 2024 preview of *Spectre Divide* highlighted the game's innovative Duality system, allowing players to control two characters during matches, which was praised for adding a unique tactical element to the shooter genre. The abrupt shutdown of *Spectre Divide* adds to a series of recent disappointments in the live-service gaming sector, including the underwhelming performance of Rocksteady’s *Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League* and Sony’s *Concord*.
