3 Live Service Games That Might Not Survive 2024

It feels really weird to be not even three full months into a year and see multiple live service games that feel like they could be gone before 2024 ends. But here we are! And, as much as I hate to say it because I genuinely like one of the three, it seems like there are three pretty clear contenders for titles that could get shut down.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League  

I’m bringing up Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League first, because this game has had the roughest start and keeps failing. Early access was a disaster, with it initially saying people already beat the game and servers being a mess. The nine-year-old Batman: Arkham Knight had more players than it did at launch. Joker is coming to the game, but it feels like support is waning. At only a month old, its price is now 40% off until March 21, 2024. As of March 15, 2024, it seemed like the concurrent player count on PCs was staying between 600-700 people. 

In spite of that though, Warner Bros Discovery head J.B. Perrette said it will continue to be “doubling down” on things like live service games on March 4, 2024, so who knows what could happen.

Given the low player counts and poor reception, it feels like this one could be on the way out.

Foamstars

Foamstars, Square Enix’s new team-based, third person shooter about people who generate foam taking part in fights, is one I genuinely like! I think it’s a lot of fun, when you can find a match with some good people. The character designs are pretty good. 

But I also know that Square Enix is not shy about shutting down games that aren’t performing or curtailing plans. If it will do it to games tied to the profitable Final Fantasy series, like FFVII: The First Soldieror Chocobo GP. In fact, Chocobo GP support ended before the game was even a year old, which makes me wonder if Foamstars could suffer the same fate. TrueTrophies reported that GameInsights data showed it experienced an over 50% drop within the first month of its release, which isn’t encouraging.

The roadmap Square Enix shared only covers up through Season 6, which should begin in July 2024, so we’ll see what happens after that.

Skull and Bones

I’m bringing up Skull and Bones last, because even though this is shaping up to be one of Ubisoft’s less successful live service games, the company traditionally isn’t as quick to shut down support for its online or offline titles as other companies. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood multiplayer only ended in 2022, and As it isn’t on Steam, we can’t turn to some resources for player counts. We know it didn’t break into the top five for sales on Sony’s PlayStation 5. There’s little to no buzz online about the title. Its launch trailer has under 5,000 “likes” and 400,000 views. (Comments on said trailer are also quite negative.) 

Of the three, I think this title could be the most likely to make it out of 2024, simply because Ubisoft might already have plans in place and want to try to continue it. But given the lackluster launch and reception, we could see it sink by December too.