The exclusive PlayStation 5 Firewall Ultra will be closed on September 17. The announcement that Firewall Ultra was going to shut down was done pretty quietly and without any fanfare, so PS5 players still playing the game may be in for a surprise.
Firewall Ultra was originally released in 2023, a few months after the launch of PS VR 2. The game is a sequel to Firewall: Zero Hourwith both titles developed by First Contact Entertainment. Although the game is approaching its third anniversary, First Contact Entertainment shut down at the end of 2023, which may have been early writing on the wall for the final game.
It's officially the end of an era for the PlayStation
The latest development paints a very clear picture that the last era of PlayStation, the moment that has defined the PS5, is over.
PlayStation 5 exclusives will be shut down forever
Multiplayer shooter and PS5 exclusive Firewall Ultra goes offline on September 17, 2026 at 10 a.m. PDT. Sony has said that since the game is only available online, it will become unplayable after this date. The suspension will land just a month after the game's third anniversary. Firewall Ultra was one of two Sony Interactive-published exclusive PlayStation VR2 games, with the other Horizon Call of the Mountain. The majority of virtual reality games available on the device have been third-party, making this shutdown particularly unfortunate for Sony and PlayStation fans.
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)
Strangely enough, the news was delivered by Sony in a very roundabout and quiet way. Instead of making a new official post on a social media account or otherwise making a clear announcement about the game's suspension, the only indication given came via an old post on the official PlayStation blog. In a story originally published on April 22, 2023, which included Firewall Ultralaunch that same week, Sony added an addendum noting that the online features of the game and its ability to be played at all would end in September. Despite Sony self-publishing the game, its discontinuation has been announced with very little fanfare.
Sadly, Firewall Ultra could never quite reach the heights of its predecessor, Firewall: Zero Hour. Released in 2018 for PlayStation VR, Firewall: Zero Hour assemble teams for four players, with 12 playable characters, customizable weapon loadouts and an additional PVP mode called Contracts. The game was fairly well received, with an average score of 78/100 from critics on OpenCritic. Although the title did not win any, it was also nominated for a number of awards, including at the Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards 2018.
Comparatively, Firewall Ultra only reached a critic average of 65/100 on OpenCritic. Reviewers cited issues such as awkward controls that didn't feel like they had been built with VR in mind, and took issue with a perceived lack of available in-game content. It's possible that it may have changed later in time, but since the developer shut down shortly after, the game has remained stagnant. Firewall Ultra has now been delisted from the PlayStation Store entirely. Unfortunately, this makes it one of the last games that will essentially be lost media when it goes offline.
Even outside of the developer being shut down, some gamers may have seen this one coming, as the PS VR2 has struggled since its launch. Within a year of launch, Sony paused production of the PS VR2 headset, and on the development side, significantly scaled back development on its VR initiative. Virtual reality is still not a mainstream form of gaming, with far fewer games developed with VR in mind than those intended to be played on a regular screen. The price of the PSVR 2 may not have helped matters, as it hit the market with an MSRP of $549.99, while its predecessor, the PS VR, was $399 at launch. VR headsets from Meta may have also caused problems for the PS VR2, as Meta Quest 3 came out later that year, before the Christmas shopping season, and the fully standalone unit cost $50 less than Sony's headset.
Source: Sony
