Mountaintop Studios has announced they are shutting down the studio just 6 months after launching their debut title Spectre Divide was released. The studio has explained that the tactical shooter, which was released as a free-to-play title, has not delivered the success that would be required to have it become sustainable. As a result of this, the game will be getting shut down and Mountaintop Studios will be closing its doors.
CEO of Mountaintop Studios, Nate Mitchell, broke the news via a blog post, stating that following the release of Season 1 for Spectre Divide, interest in the game had subsided. Season 1’s release had seen a total of 400,000 players, with a total player count of 10,000 across all available platforms.
He wrote in the blog post:
As time has gone on, we haven’t seen enough active players and incoming revenue to cover the day-to-day costs of Spectre and the studio. Since the PC launch, we stretched our remaining capital as far as we could, but at this point, we’re out of funding to support the game. This means Mountaintop will be closing its doors at the end of this week.
We expect to take Spectre offline within the next 30 days, but we plan on disabling new purchases and refunding money spent since Season 1 launch via the platforms. We’ll be following up with more information on this soon.
Mitchell also said that Mountaintop explored serial options in hopes of keeping the studio open. These included attempts to find a publisher, searching for additional funding, or even being acquired, with these attempts ultimately falling flat given this recent news. Previously, Mountaintop had secured $35 million across two investment rounds to aid development on Spectre Divide.
At this time, it is unclear how many employees are still employed at the studio, with the studio having previously laid off 13 people in September of 2024. When this occurred the studio had stated that these cuts were made to ensure the ability to support the game and its playerbase for a long period. Mitchell stated the team “went down swinging” after they rallied to implement post-launch content based on post-launch feedback.
He additionally added:
Game development is full of twists, turns, and surprises, and the industry has changed dramatically since we started the project in 2020. Even though we missed the mark this time, we wouldn’t trade the journey for anything.
Currently, it is a troubling time for Live-Service games, with many like XDefiant and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League recently announcing their closure, to name a few. Most famously, Sony produced Concord, which only lasted two weeks on the market last year, despite having a rumored 400 million budget. While I would argue that all games have merit, Live-Service games inherently attempt to monetise the experience for continued profits and content updates over a long period of time. With so many games attempting to enter this space, and nowhere near enough profits to go around, it isn’t a surprise so many studios are struggling to sustain their game.
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