Sony has had one huge hit in its new era of live services for the PlayStation brand. That is, of course, Helldivers 2, the co-op PvE bug-squasher that has dramatically exceeded sales expectations and, while far from its peak and currently frustrating its players, still has a healthy player base.

Then there is… everything else.

Sony recognizes that it really does need to expand PlayStation’s offerings beyond huge, super-expensive single-player games, no matter how critically acclaimed they are, and has previously announced a massive expansion into the Live service.

At first, it was rumored that there would be 12 games coming out by the end of the fiscal year in March 2026. Then they halved that number to six over the same period, with the other six becoming increasingly nebulous. Since then, Sony’s live plans have gone poorly in many ways, aside from Helldivers 2:

• The online multiplayer game The Last of Us was canceled after years of work and millions of dollars invested, delaying future releases from Naughty Dog. A big internal issue at Sony.
• Foamstars, the Square Enix PS exclusive, came and went without anyone really noticing.
• Sony’s acquisition of Bungie has proven to be a failure. Destiny 2’s subpar performance led to hundreds of layoffs at the studio and record low player numbers. The game is entering an uncertain era, despite its previous purpose being to print money.
• Then we come to Concord, which launched this weekend, didn’t even have 700 concurrent players on Steam, and doesn’t seem to be anywhere near PlayStation’s top 10 list. The game was eight years in development, reportedly cost over $100 million, and is now one of the biggest multiplayer launch disasters in industry history.

Sony’s future plans for its live service games have been limited to just a few well-known titles.

• A multiplayer game called Horizon Zero Dawn is still being worked on, and everyone is hoping it won’t go the way of TLOU Factions.
• There’s Haven’s Fairgame$, a Payday-like heist game with few details and no release date, last revealed in May 2023, well over a year ago.
• Bungie is reportedly set to release its extraction shooter Marathon in 2025, although there are doubts about that timeline. Unlike other PS multiplayer games, it will release on all platforms, including Xbox.
• Bungie has now split off from a group to form a new studio under Sony that is working on a game codenamed Gummi Bears that combines a MOBA with Smash Bros.-style combat. It has not yet been revealed.

These seem to be the main ones, and it’s not clear how well or badly things are going with them behind the scenes. Of all of them, Marathon seems to be the most promising, but it’s not impossible that Helldivers 2 will remain the biggest hit of nearly a dozen attempts. And it’s not clear how long the game will last beyond this year.

It’s not hard to imagine why Sony has pushed so hard on the live service trend, as nearly everyone in the industry is trying to make ongoing games that generate ongoing revenue in an era of exploding costs, especially for cinematic single-player games. And yet, of course, we’ve also seen those games become huge hits with players, from Hogwarts Legacy to Black Myth Wukong to Stellar Blade. Breaking the wall of Fortnite/Warzone/Apex/Valorant/Overwatch is much, much harder than making one-off single-player games that are hits. But the economics of doing so aren’t always there.

Sony has not announced any changes to its plans, but given what has happened so far, it would be wise to provide updates on the remaining live games currently in production.

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