The free-to-play 3v3 tactical shooter, Spectre Divide, is set to shut down just six months after its debut in September 2024, and only weeks following its release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. This abrupt closure also marks the end for its developer, Mountaintop Studios. In a statement shared on social media, Mountaintop CEO Nate Mitchell confirmed the unfortunate news, 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
Initially, the team at Mountaintop Studios was optimistic after the game's first week, which saw it attract approximately 400,000 players with a peak concurrent count of about 10,000 across all platforms. However, the 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."
Mitchell elaborated on the efforts made to keep the game alive, saying, "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."
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 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 glowing preview of Spectre Divide in August 2024 praised the game's tactical depth and innovative Duality system, which allowed players to control two characters during matches. However, Spectre Divide's rapid shutdown adds to a growing list of live-service game disappointments, including the failures of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Sony’s Concord.
