Square Enix has announced the next season of its live service shooter Foamstars will be the last, though the game will remain online.
A blog post revealed the Party Goes On season, which begins December 13 and runs until January 17, will be the final season of Foamstars but Square Enix will continue to support the game in a handful of other ways.
Square Enix will introduce "expansions" that will "enhance gameplay, such as the ability to customise shots of each character, and new enhancement elements, such as Prism Gems, all aimed at ensuring players can continue to enjoy the game for the foreseeable future."
The Foamstars Cup will also be hosted across a series of events named after each character, which presumably means eight separate events since there are eight player characters in the game.
"Furthermore, to ensure that new players can fully enjoy Foamstars, previous Season Passes will be made available again," Square Enix said. "Players can switch between Season Passes at any time to proceed along the Season Pass track of your choice and obtain items from past seasons. This will make it possible for players to obtain all the items from each season."
While this isn't as disastrous a move as a full shutdown which other triple-A live service games have suffered recently, the removal of seasons certainly doesn't bode well for the future of Foamstars. Square Enix only released the game in February, meaning the dedicated live service support that was seasons will come to end less than one year after launch.
Foamstars debuted to a middling reception and Square Enix seemingly hasn't been able to turn interest around. It earned a 6/10 in IGN's review, in which we said: "Foamstars' combat mechanics are unexpectedly engaging, but confounding time-gated modes and aggressive monetization make them harder to enjoy."
Live service games such as Foamstars have had a rough year, with many falling to reach high levels of engagement. The model is so attractive to publishers as, instead of just making a single payment to buy a game, players are given a continuous stream of purchasing options such as battle passes, season passes, and other microtransactions.
A live service boom of sorts has occurred in the video game industry as a result of incredibly successful games such as Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys, but many publishers have seemingly fallen short by looking to capitalize immediately instead of building up a dedicated audience first.
Foamstars may be included in this list, though others such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League have also fallen flat. The most infamous live service game of the year, however, and perhaps ever, is in PlayStation hero shooter Concord.
It debuted to a tragic 697 peak concurrent players on Steam, a number that made the 12,786 players of the aforementioned Suicide Squad, which was dubbed a disappointment by Warner Bros. Discovery and caused a $200 million hit to revenue, look like a titan.
Sony then made the decision to shut down the game less than two weeks after launch, and while some debated a potential return, all hopes were dashed when developer Firewalk Studios was shut down a few weeks later.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
