New PlayStation Live-Service game reportedly struggles to 'find the fun'

Upcoming mining shooter for PlayStation Fairgames reportedly struggling to “find the fun” during its development. An ongoing playtest has indicated that the game for the PlayStation live service may still be in trouble, after similar reports surfaced over the past year.

Haven Studios announced Fairgames 2023 for PlayStation 5 and PC. It's the first title from the Montreal-based studio, billed as an extraction game where players must work as a team to collect more loot than their enemies. Since the announcement, FairgamesThe development has been anything but smooth. In September 2025, Fairgames lost its creative director, Daniel Drapeau, who moved on to Warner Bros Games Montreal. Considering how key a creative director is to shaping a project's direction, it's safe to say this was a big hit for Fairgames' development.

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Fairgames testing is still struggling to find the fun factor

A recent report from Insider Gaming claims that the latest round of playtesting for Fairgames doesn't go well, and the game allegedly struggles to “find the fun”. The report says that an extraction-based game mode called Cargo Heist is being tested, with comparisons made to both The division and Call of Duty in its movement and graphics. It also reveals that the game's playtest Discord server is filled with tons of negative feedback from players, criticizing “game-defining features like movement, NPCs, the class system, and more.”

It is claimed that players are trying Fairgamesbut only manage to play a few games before they quit, with bored teammates ending up becoming an increasing problem. Reports of similar poorly received Fairgames playtests started appearing almost a year ago, and it seems the game still has a very long way to go before it's ready to compete in the increasingly crowded live service and extraction games.

With its creative director leaving at the end of 2025 and playtesting still going poorly, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel for Fairgames. The project has been shrouded in bad news lately. Back in February, it was revealed that Haven Studios was not renewing the contracts of certain contractors it works with Fairgamesdespite the fact that the game is still nowhere near being finished. There's still no official release window for the extraction shooter, but all indications are that it's a long way off.

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Sony's massive investment in the live service over the past few years has not gone entirely according to plan. The high-profile failure of Concord was a game-changer for the company, and PlayStation claimed it had begun to reconsider the risks in its wake. This makes its approach to Fairgames particularly interesting to see. It knows that releasing a subpar product will likely result in another significant flop, but Sony also won't want to burn through huge amounts of cash in the pursuit of Fairgames playable.