Sony has introduced that live-service hero shooter Harmony will likely be shutting down efficient Friday, and that each one gamers who’ve bought the sport will likely be entitled to refunds.
In a PlayStation Weblog put up, Sony says that it has been “listening carefully” to Harmony suggestions. The studio says that whereas a lot of Harmony‘s qualities “resonated” with its participant base, “different points of the sport and our preliminary launch did not land the way in which we would meant”.
For that purpose, Sony says it is taking Harmony offline on September sixth, which is that this Friday. The corporate says that it’ll “discover choices, together with these that can higher attain our gamers”.
Along with taking the sport’s servers offline, Sony says it’s going to offer “a full refund for all avid gamers who’ve bought the sport for PS5 or PC”. That is everybody who purchased it, since Harmony is not out there on every other platforms.
In the event you purchased it both from the PlayStation Retailer or from PlayStation Direct, you will be issued a refund “again to your unique cost technique”.
Issues are a little bit completely different in the event you bought Harmony from different platforms. Steam gamers will likely be issued a refund “over the approaching days”, as will the Epic Video games Retailer. Bodily retailers, in the meantime, may have their very own refund processes to which you need to refer in the event you purchased the sport from them.
As soon as you have acquired your refund, you will not have entry to Harmony anymore, which means that Sony is not simply going to be taking this one offline for a couple of weeks.
Sony taking Harmony offline is a surprising blow to a sport that was imagined to be one of many cornerstones of the studio’s live-service strategy.
Final yr, Sony revealed that it might launch simply six of its previously-planned twelve live-service video games earlier than the tip of the 2025 fiscal yr, and since Harmony is presumably a type of six video games, its failure ought to most likely trigger Sony execs to do some severe soul-searching.
It is outstanding that Sony is selecting to take Harmony offline lower than two weeks after its launch, however provided that the sport attracted simply shy of 700 concurrent gamers at its peak (on Steam, that’s), it is a choice that makes some sense. Keep tuned for extra on this.