One of Sony’s last remaining live service projects is still alive, in what’s been a very bad week for PlayStation.
Sony might be dominating the console landscape in terms of PlayStation 5 sales, but it hasn’t been nearly as successful when it comes to maintaining a steady supply of quality first party games for the system.
The company’s pursuit of a live service hit has led to a spree of cancellations and studio closures, at the expense of other experiences. The anti-consumer sentiment around Sony has only grown over recent months, mostly thanks to the decision to stop producing physical discs after 2027.
A lot of Sony’s fumbles this generation have come to the fore this week, where we’ve seen Hideo Kojima’s Physint being ditched by PlayStation, a lukewarm response to Marvel’s Wolverine, and a secret push for one of its last remaining live service games.
Fairgames, from developer Haven Studios, was announced in 2023 but little has been seen of it since. It looks like another extraction-orientated shooter akin to Marathon, albeit one where you are breaking into vaults and then trying to escape.
While there’s been concern (or hope, from some fans) the title may have been cancelled, especially after its absence in the recent State Of Play, new footage and evidence of a playtest has emerged, which implies it could be re-revealed soon.
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An invite to a playtest recently popped up on player.gg, which announced it had been given ‘exclusive access to a closed playtest of an unannounced competitive action shooter codenamed Project Espresso being developed by a AAA studio’.
Following the news, footage has emerged online showing gameplay from Project Espresso, which looks a lot like Fairgames. According to Insider Gaming, Fairgames project name is Project Espresso, with the game’s official title now rumoured to be Break In.
It’s unclear when Fairgames/Break In will be released but, based on the leaked footage, it looks worryingly generic. It seems especially perplexing considering Marathon, another Sony extraction shooter but with a more distinctive style, failed to attract a large audience earlier this year.
As Sony tries to salvage poorly received live service projects, including the recently respecced Horizon Hunters Gathering, it isn’t having a stellar time with single-player projects either. Marvel’s Wolverine, which launches on September 15, has become one of Sony’s lowest-rated first party games of the PlayStation 5 generation.
At the time of writing (September 11), Marvel’s Wolverine has a score on Metacritic of 78 based on 112 critic reviews. This is equal to Days Gone Remastered, and only above Concord – a game that was shut down after two weeks and which scored just 62.
A score of 78 isn’t bad, and Metacritic isn’t exactly the best barometer of quality (Returnal ranks lower than Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart), but it’s certainly going to be a disappointment to Sony and developer Insomniac, as it’s the joint lowest ranked single-player game.
In our review, we gave Marvel’s Wolverine a 7/10 and described it as shallow and repetitive, albeit with ‘plenty of heart and ambition’ in its storytelling.
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