Jade Raymond Departure Adds to Sony's Live Service Woes

Jade Raymond has departed Haven Studios, the Sony-owned developer working on the online multiplayer shooter Fairgames. The game has reportedly been delayed following its external playtest, dealing another setback to PlayStation's live service strategy.

According to Bloomberg, Raymond left the company she founded several weeks after an external test for Fairgames apparently fell short of expectations. Originally scheduled for a fall 2025 release, the game is now postponed to spring 2026.

As Bloomberg reported:

PlayStation leadership did not provide Haven staff with a reason for her departure. However, it occurred several weeks after an external test of Haven's first game, the online shooter Fairgames, according to sources familiar with the matter. Some developers at Haven expressed concern over the game's reception and its development progress, said the sources, who requested anonymity as they are not authorized to speak publicly.

Sony is continuing its support for Haven and Fairgames for now, with new co-studio heads Marie-Eve Danis and Pierre-François Sapinski now leading the project.

This development adds to the mounting challenges facing Sony's live service ambitions, which appear to be undergoing a significant retrenchment. While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 was a breakout success, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, Sony's other live service titles have faced cancellations or disastrous launches.

Indeed, Sony's Concord stands as one of the most significant failures in PlayStation history, remaining online for only a couple of weeks before being taken down due to critically low player counts. Sony later decided to terminate the game entirely and shutter its developer.

The failure of Concord followed Sony's earlier cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer project. Earlier this year, Sony reportedly canceled two unannounced live service games: one being a God of War title in development at Bluepoint Games, and the other from Days Gone developer Bend Studio.

Sony announced plans in February 2022 to launch more than 10 live service games by March 2026, stating the initiative would deliver games of various genres to diverse audiences. The company invested heavily in studio acquisitions to support this strategy, bringing in Destiny developer Bungie, Jade Raymond's Haven Studios, and the now-closed Firewalk Studios.

However, in 2023, Sony president Hiroki Totoki stated the company was reevaluating the 12 live service PlayStation games in development and committed to launching only six of them by the end of the fiscal year 2025 (March 2026). Totoki noted Sony was still determining release timelines for the remaining six titles, emphasizing, "We are not rigidly committed to specific titles, but quality for gamers should be our top priority.”

Bungie continues to carry the live service banner with the ongoing Destiny 2 and the in-development Marathon, which is slated for a full launch later this year. Earlier this month, Sony announced a new PlayStation studio named teamLFG and teased its debut project, a live service incubation title. Guerrilla Games' Horizon multiplayer project is also in development.