Mountaintop Studios has announced that its free-to-play first-person shooter Spectre Divide is to shut down soon, and that the studio itself will also be closing its doors.
Per a news post on Steam, Spectre Divide will cease service "within the next 30 days". Mountaintop will also be disabling any new in-game purchases and refunding any money players have spent since the launch of the game's first season a couple of weeks ago.
The studio says that this season's launch "hasn't achieved the level of success [it] needed to sustain the game and keep Mountaintop afloat", so not only will the game be stopping service, but the studio will be shutting down "at the end of this week".
Mountaintop says that it was "optimistic" in the first week of Spectre Divide's first season, with around 10,000 players apparently checking into the game across all platforms in that time period.
However, the studio says it hasn't "seen enough active players and incoming revenue" to cover either the game's operation or the day-to-day running of the company, and that it's "stretched [its] remaining capital as far as [it] could".
The studio goes on to say that it's tried everything, from finding a new publisher through seeking additional investment and even "an acquisition", but that "in the end, we weren't able to make it work".
Spectre Divide's situation is sad, but it's far from unique. Just a week or two ago, Phoenix Labs announced its Monster Hunter-style action RPG Dauntless will shut down in May, and it's not just smaller studios either.
Mountaintop's closure is also part of a wider industry wave that has seen studios like Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor developer Monolith, the Seattle-based Marvel Rivals division of NetEase, and multiple Ubisoft branches affected.
If you'd like to check out Spectre Divide before its shutdown (which still doesn't have an official date), you can do so right now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
