‘CrossfireX’ and ‘Knockout City’ join the list of live service games shutting down soon

It’s a rough time for fans of several live service games, which are titles designed to be constantly updated for a long time. A bunch are shutting down in the near future, and  and  are among the latest to join the list.

CrossfireX is an Xbox console version of the massively popular tactical shooter Crossfire. , it arrived less than a year ago, but it wasn’t a hit with critics or, more crucially, the public. Developer Smilegate has (the multiplayer component is free-to-play, but the is not) and is offering refunds for purchases made in the last two weeks. It will shut off the CrossfireX servers on May 18th.

Knockout City, meanwhile, is a fun dodgeball brawler that . The game when developer Velan Studios parted ways with EA to self-publish it. Alas, Knockout City is shutting down too. Its ninth season will be the final one and the on June 6th. On a positive note, Velan will roll out an option for PC players to run the game on private servers.

Smilegate and Velan are far from alone in closing down live service games recently. said this week it would shutter Echo VR, a zero-gravity frisbee title previously known as , on . It also emerged over the last week or so that , Rumbleverse, Crayta are closing shop. Development is ending on and Marvel’s Avengers as well, but Turtle Rock Studios and Crystal Dynamics will . 

It’s tough to make a game that’s successful, let alone one that requires players to stick with it for the long haul. Major players like Fortnite, Apex Legends (the console and PC version), Valorant, Overwatch 2 and Genshin Impact aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. But developers are all competing with each other and anything else that can soak up peoples’ attention. Even though there are , there are only so many live service games that the market can sustain.