King Of Meat Is Newest Dwell Service Flop To Announce It Is Shutting Down

On-line-only live-service co-op recreation King of Meat launched final fall. About 4 months later, the sport introduced that its servers could be shutting off in April. This has develop into a really acquainted story within the recreation business.

King of Meat launched on October 31, 2025, and value $30. Within the lead-up to the launch of the Amazon-published recreation, it bought a flashy (and certain very costly) animated trailer at Gamescom Opening Evening Dwell in August 2024. There was even a (additionally seemingly costly) promotional video from MrBeast that includes content material creators enjoying King of Meat in an enormous event. Reportedly, management at Glowmade, the studio behind the sport, was aiming for round 100,000 concurrent gamers on Steam at launch. It by no means exceeded greater than 400 in accordance with SteamDB and by no means cracked 1,000 throughout consoles and PC. Stunning no person, layoffs have been deliberate in late December. Now, the sport is shutting down.

On February 23,  Amazon announced that King of Meat‘s servers will shut off for good on April 9, 2026 in a submit titled “The Way forward for King of Meat.”

“Regardless of the creativity and innovation Glowmade dropped at King of Meat, the sport has sadly not discovered the viewers we hoped for,” stated the submit. “Consequently, we now have made the troublesome choice to conclude our funding within the recreation, and King of Meat’s servers will shut on April 9, 2026. Gamers will have the ability to entry and play all current content material till then, so we encourage you to get pleasure from your remaining time within the recreation along with your fellow Contenders.”

All gamers who bought King of Meat will obtain a full refund “within the coming weeks,” in accordance with the submit asserting the sport’s demise.

“We wish to sincerely thank each participant who supported King of Meat and the great group that shaped round it,” stated Amazon. “Your enthusiasm, creativeness, and suggestions have meant the world to us and to the workforce at Glowmade. We’re grateful for Glowmade’s partnership and keenness all through this journey and want them continued success sooner or later.”

Cease making an attempt to drive individuals to play extra live-service video games

That is removed from the primary live-service recreation that’s introduced a shutdown over the previous couple of years. In actual fact, the chances are excessive that if a studio launches an online-only live-service recreation, it will likely be lifeless in a couple of 12 months or much less these days. We famously noticed that with Harmony in 2024, which was such a disastrous launch that it died in lower than two weeks and torpedoed Sony’s ongoing live-service recreation efforts, seemingly resulting in canceled tasks and studio closures as PlayStation reevaluated its technique. It hasn’t given up solely, although.

However Sony isn’t alone in its determined, messy push for eternally video games that may print cash. Amazon is shutting down its once-popular MMO New World, and earlier than that, killed on-line shooter Crucible, a recreation that I can nearly guess no person remembers in 2026. You can make a reasonably lengthy listing of all of the live-service and different on-line video games which have died lately. Really, we now have performed that. It simply retains taking place. And but, publishers preserve investing some huge cash and assets into chasing Fortnite and different live-service hits, regardless of being surrounded by a graveyard of previous makes an attempt. And the few massive winners there are today got here out years in the past, and everybody remains to be enjoying them.

Hopefully, the oldsters at Glowmade can bounce again, together with all different affected devs, and the business stops making an attempt to make 500 extra live-service video games no person clearly desires. Sure, Helldivers 2 succeeded. There are uncommon exceptions, certain. However odds are your in-development live-service venture received’t be so fortunate.