Earlier this week, developer Mountaintop Studios introduced that it might be closing, and shutting down its debut title, Spectre: Divide, throughout the subsequent 30 days. Simply 6 months after the sport’s preliminary launch, and solely weeks after its arrival on PS5 and different current-gen consoles, this new 3v3 tactical shooter was formally seeing its remaining days.
It was an unlucky announcement because it meant the removing of a sport that some folks loved, and everybody at Mountaintop dropping their jobs, thrust as soon as once more right into a risky and overcrowded job market. It was not a cheerful announcement, and served as one other reminder as to simply how crowded and aggressive the free-to-play FPS market is.
FragPunk developer Unhealthy Guitar Studio, nevertheless, or extra precisely, its socials crew, didn’t learn the room. In a now deleted remark that X customers have been fast to screenshot, beneath Mountaintop’s announcement, the official FragPunk social account used a well-liked Captain America meme in a mocking vogue, implying that Mountaintop had “tousled,” leading to Spectre: Divide’s shutdown, and that FragPunk had extra longevity to it.
The studio has since apologized for the remark, calling it “insensitive and unprofessional.” It continued that the remark “doesn’t mirror our studio’s values or respect for fellow business friends.”
Sport builders have come to count on unfair and harsh phrases from common avid gamers on a regular basis, who conceal behind their pc screens and profile avatars that hold them nameless whereas spewing the type of rhetoric Unhealthy Guitar Studio displayed right here. It’s shocking, to say the least, to see it come from one other sport studio.
Not to mention a sport studio that, just like Mountaintop, made a free-to-play FPS sport that’s attempting to compete with each different main free-to-play FPS sport.
Mountaintop Studios was additionally an impartial crew, creating and publishing Spectre: Divide by itself. Unhealthy Guitar Studio is a subsidiary of Thunderfire Video games, which is a subsidiary of NetEase Video games, one of many world’s greatest sport publishers and builders. Unhealthy Guitar’s touch upon Mountaintop’s closure couldn’t have been punching down extra if it tried.
And that’s all earlier than contemplating the opposite side to all of this, that Unhealthy Guitar Studio may discover itself in the same place to Mountaintop inside a yr. With the backing of NetEase, it’s doubtless that FragPunk will probably be given extra runway than Mountaintop may have given Spectre: Divide, however anybody following FPS video games in the previous few years is aware of that having the backing of a giant writer and/or mum or dad firm does nothing to cease a studio and/or a brand new sport from being shut down.
XDefiant was shut down by Ubisoft inside one yr of it launching. SEGA cancelled Hyena’s earlier than it may even launch, and naturally nobody will quickly overlook Sony’s shut down of Harmony.
These are only a few of the numerous examples of video games from massive publishers/builders that struggled to, or barely acquired the possibility to, compete with the juggernauts of the style like Name of Responsibility, Valorant, Apex Legends and Counter-Strike. You would additionally doubtlessly add Marvel Rivals to that listing, one other sport that’s in NetEase’s portfolio.
FragPunk is at the moment having fun with a robust launch, with 73,166 gamers in-game at time of writing, after solely arriving on PC this previous March 6, 2025. It’s stated to be on consoles “throughout the subsequent two months,” in line with the FAQ on its web site.
That’s all nice information for Unhealthy Guitar and NetEase, for now. We’ll see the way it’s doing in a yr’s time.
Supply – [Bad Guitar Studio]
