Please stop it with all the bland, new multiplayer shooters that will die in six months

rockpapershotgun.com:

2023 has seen the closure of more big multiplayer games than, well, any time I can recall in recent memory. One after the other, developers' dreams of making the next big Destiny-like have gradually collapsed in on themselves. Like a deflated concertina, their last honks of life have been crushed down to desperate, fizzling squeals as servers lie empty and the cost of maintaining them spirals out of control. Some are still hanging in there, sure, but the genre as a whole feels like it's at a tipping point - and I couldn't help but sigh as five more multiplayer shooters joined the fray last night as part of Sony's PlayStation Showcase.

Not only were they great in number, but none of them felt - as much as CG trailers can feel - in any way new and exciting. One, even, was a soulless Splatoon rip-off, while another has managed to arrive on exactly the same idea as Sega's Hyenas several years too late. A third, still, looked like the blinged up lovechild of Watch_Dogs and the baffingly bad Rockay City.

But the more important question is this: who are these games hoping to court? I'd wager that most multiplayer shooter likers have time for one, maybe two of these in their lives absolute maximum, and most of the big hitters like Destiny have either already swallowed their playerbase whole, or burned them to crisp with their incessant grind. Heck, I can't even make room in my life to try even half of them these days to see if they're worth sticking with - perhaps because I know deep down that they're almost all guaranteed to fold within their first six months like so many of this year's casualties have done already. There's simply too of these games now. We have reached saturation years ago, and it's time to say: no more. I'm