Free-to-Play Shooter Spectre Divide Shutting Down Weeks After 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 only weeks following its debut on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. This announcement also marks the closure of its developer, Mountaintop Studios.

Mountaintop CEO Nate Mitchell confirmed the news via a statement on social media today, stating, "Unfortunately, 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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Initially, the team was optimistic after the first week, noting that the game attracted around 400,000 players, with a peak concurrent count of approximately 10,000 across all platforms. However, Mitchell elaborated, "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 efforts to find a publisher, secure additional investment, or pursue an acquisition, Mitchell admitted, "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 sharply contrasts with earlier reports from October 2024, where Mitchell had assured that "the servers aren’t shutting down, and the updates aren’t going to stop," and 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. Despite this initial acclaim, the game's rapid shutdown follows a trend of other live-service game failures, including Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Sony’s Concord.