Sony cancels Fairgames after its playtest misses retention goals

Sony has cancelled Fairgames, the PvP heist shooter Haven Studios had been building for PS5 and PC since before its 2023 reveal. Bloomberg broke the news on November 10, 2026 (early on November 11 in Malaysia), citing an internal email from PlayStation executives that blamed a recent playtest. Nobody at Haven loses their job, according to a Sony spokesperson quoted in the report.

The short version for players: the game you saw in the 2023 trailer is not coming out in any form, and the Montreal team behind it will now help other PlayStation studios instead.

What's confirmed

Why it was cancelled. In the email, which Bloomberg reviewed and IGN, Polygon and The Verge quote, executives Sean Decker and John Doyle say the latest test showed "strong operational excellence, live ops readiness and community engagement". The problem was the players: "player feedback and retention results were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set." The pair also point to "challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre" as part of the decision.

Which test. IGN thinks the test in question was the private "Project Espresso" playtest that began recruiting in September with a gameplay trailer for a game that looked a lot like Fairgames. Sony has not confirmed that link.

What happens to Haven. The studio stays open. MobileSyrup and Polygon both report that a PlayStation spokesperson said there would be no job cuts, and that Haven will move into a support role for other Sony studios. No new Haven project has been named.

What the game was. Haven revealed Fairgame$ (the dollar sign was part of the original logo) on May 24, 2023, on the PlayStation Blog. Creative director Mathieu Leduc described it as the studio's first new IP and a competitive heist game where crews rob the ultra-rich, built around emergent sandbox play. It was announced for PS5 and PC. No release date, price or platform list beyond that was ever given.

A troubled run. Polygon reports that the game was reworked several times after the reveal, and MobileSyrup says the team had planned to relaunch it under a new name. Haven was founded in 2021 by Jade Raymond, formerly of Ubisoft and Google's Stadia games division, and bought by Sony in 2022. Raymond has since left the studio.

Background

Fairgames was one of the projects behind Sony's 2022 push into live-service games, which Polygon notes aimed for at least ten such games by 2026. That plan has thinned out fast. Concord launched and was switched off within weeks in 2024. A multiplayer The Last of Us project and a live-service God of War game were cancelled before release, and Polygon lists London Studio, Firewalk Studios and Bluepoint Games among the studios closed. The Verge adds that a live-service Horizon spin-off was recently rebooted.

The wins are real but few. Helldivers 2 has been a hit since 2024, and The Verge points out it is now also on Xbox. Bungie's Marathon, which launched in March, has had what The Verge calls a rough start, although Bungie announced a big December update the same day. IGN says the main live-service game still visible on Sony's slate is 4:Loop from JJ Abrams' studio Bad Robot.

My take: what it means for players

Killing a shooter after a playtest is the cheap way to fail, and I mean that as praise. Concord taught everyone what the expensive way looks like: a full launch, a $40 price tag and a shutdown within weeks. If retention in a closed test is "mixed", a paid launch was only going to make that number public.

The word that matters in that email is retention. Hero shooters and extraction games live or die on whether people come back next week. Sega's Hyenas was cancelled in 2023 for similar reasons, and Ubisoft's XDefiant closed in 2025 despite a strong first month. The PvP shooter market in 2026 is still dominated by games that are years old: Counter-Strike, Valorant, Fortnite, Call of Duty. A new heist shooter had to pull players away from all of them, and it seems the testers did not move.

The no-layoffs line is the best part of this story, and it is rare. I would still watch what Haven supports next, because "support studio" can mean very different things a year from now. For players who wanted a modern PvP heist game, the gap stays open. Payday 2 is still the reference point more than a decade after its 2013 launch, and that says a lot about how hard this genre is to crack.

What we don't know yet

• Sony's own word. There is no PlayStation Blog post or public statement yet. Everything comes from Bloomberg's report and the spokesperson it quotes.
• What Haven works on next. Which studios it will support has not been said.
• Project Espresso. Whether that playtest really was Fairgames is IGN's reading, not a confirmed fact.
• Cost. Neither Sony nor Bloomberg has given a figure for what the cancellation cost.

Quick facts

FAQ

Why did Sony cancel Fairgames?

An internal email from executives Sean Decker and John Doyle says a recent playtest produced mixed feedback and retention below Sony's goals, in a difficult market for PvP shooters.

Is Haven Studios closing?

No. A Sony spokesperson told Bloomberg there are no job cuts, and Haven will now support other PlayStation studios.

Will Fairgames come back under another name?

Nothing suggests that. MobileSyrup reports a rename had been planned before the cancellation, but development has now stopped.

What platforms was Fairgames planned for?

PS5 and PC, according to Haven's May 2023 reveal on the PlayStation Blog. It never received a release date.

More: Bungie to Destiny fans: don't buy Marathon to support us.

Sources: PlayStation Blog (Haven Studios, Fairgame$ reveal, May 2023); IGN; Polygon; The Verge; MobileSyrup. Image: IGN feed image.