Amazon games has announced that its 2025 co-op action game King of meat will end service on April 9, 2026, just under six months after launch. The decision to shut down comes as part of a wider scaling back of Amazon's ambitions for live service gaming after years of high-profile cancellations and closures. According to King of meat developer Glowmade, the game didn't find the audience and player numbers that both developers and Amazon Games were aiming for, with projections hoping for around 100,000 concurrent players, but Steam charts peaked at an all-time high of 320 three months ago, with 9 players online at the time of writing.
King of meat launched cross-platform on October 7, 2025, as a four-player PVE dungeon crawler that mixes chaotic combat with platforming mechanics. Despite early enthusiasm in some corners of the community, industry reports suggest that the game struggled to attract players on a large scale, as evidenced by Steam charts. Due to the impending suspension, players will be able to continue enjoying King of meat until its servers shut down on April 9, 2026, and all purchases will be fully refunded, according to the publishers' notices. This is yet another live service game shut down by Amazon Games, with the most prominent example New world.
Highguard confirms new content update coming this week, despite speculation of an impending shutdown
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Amazon Games pulls the plug on Live-Service Game King of Meat
King of meat is not an isolated case. Over the past decade, Amazon's ventures into live services and online titles have been marred by a series of cancellations and server shutdowns. From ambitious MMOs to competitive shooters with live services, several projects never achieved the sustained community engagement Amazon hoped for.
Rearrange the cases in the correct US release order.
Start
Rearrange the cases in the correct US release order.
Light (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
Canceled or suspended live service titles, games about to be suspended or end of service
- Break-out – Competitive team-based online play was discontinued prior to launch.
- Crucible – Free-to-play team shooter that launched in 2020 and was shut down that year due to lack of traction. Unlike Break-out, Crucible was a live service title.
- The Lord of the Rings MMO (several attempts) – A much anticipated one The Lord of the Rings MMORPG that was shelved more than once during restructuring and strategic changes, with the most recent being 2025.
- King of meat – Live service PVE title ends in April 2026, following weaker than expected player count and retention.
- New World: Aeternum – Amazon's flagship MMORPG, released in 2021, New worlds servers will be shut down permanently on January 31, 2027, with content development having already ceased and accessibility to digital storefronts halted.
Amazon's mixed track record, highlighted by ambitious live service projects that either never found an audience or stagnated after launch, underscores the volatility of online gaming and the challenge of sustaining player engagement over the long term. From Crucibles quick removal to the long-term winding down of New worldpublishers often face difficult financial calculations when servers do not deliver expected retention and monetization.
As King of meat preparing to shut down next month, Amazon Games appears to be reevaluating its portfolio and refocusing efforts on publishing partnerships and other entertainment ventures, rather than maintaining an expansive stable of in-house live service titles. As much as King of meats suspension could hurt, it's yet another example of how uncertain the future can be for live service gaming, especially with Highguards current status.
In fact, while not an Amazon property, Highguards website is offline now after a round of layoffs at Wildlight Entertainment, and it's unclear if the game is sticking around with its new content update or is about to shut down as King of meat. HighguardThe story is not so different from Amazon's Crucibleand both are in turn adjacent to what happened to Harmony. Fixed King of meatThe imminent end of the service is sad, it shines a light on the expectations of live service games and why those projections can lead to failure.
