5 online shooters that could die in 2023

The year 2023 is steadily progressing, as are the demise of some online shooters. Things are currently looking very bleak for one or the other title. MeinMMO author Dariusz Müller introduces you to 5 games that could not survive the current year.

Who writes here? Dariusz Müller plays many different shooters and is a big fan of the genre. He also tests titles that do not belong to a large franchise and only have a few hundred to a thousand players. Again and again he encounters games that hardly fill a lobby and inevitably throw players from all over the world together on one server.

How did the list come about? I’ve been looking for games that are suffering from massive problems and whose future looks bleak. For example, low player numbers, lack of updates, lack of interest from the community in new content and miserable ratings were some of the criteria I paid attention to.

Like MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch with his list of MMOs that will die in 2023, I have not included any games in the list that are declared dead but still have thousands of players. Fortnite, Rainbow Six: Siege, Destiny 2 or CoD Warzone 2 can be criticized and declared dead on Reddit – that doesn’t change the fact that they are still alive with thousands of players.

split gate

Genre: Arena shooter | Developer: 1047 Games | Platform: PC, PlayStation, Xbox |
Release date: May 24, 2019 | Model: Free2Play | Perspective: first person |

What kind of game is this? Splitgate was the surprise title for shooter fans in summer 2021. The innovative arena shooter let you travel through the maps with portals and already had different modes in the beta.

Suddenly, the indie game had a bit of a hype and even peaked at over 67,000 concurrent players on Steam. However, they dropped drastically after just a few months.

How is Splitgate today? Spligate only had an average of 466 players left on Steam in April 2023. As early as September 2022, the developers also announced that they would no longer be working on the shooter, even if the servers were still running (via splitgate.com).

What is the problem? Since the developers are no longer working on Splitgate, there is no new content. Players no longer have a reason to return to the shooter at a later point in time if they ever run out of breath. The number of players is correspondingly low and constantly falling.

After announcing the cessation of development in 2022, closing the servers seems to be the next step that will inevitably follow at some point – possibly 2023.

hired ops

Genre: Arena shooter | Developer: Absolute Soft LLC | Platform: personal computer | Release date: April 13, 2021 |
Model: Free2Play | Perspective: first person |

What kind of game is this? Hired Ops is a PvP arena shooter set in the fictional Russian city of Tarkov. Yes, this is the same city as in the extraction shooter Escape from Tarkov, because the developers of Absolut Soft LLC and Battlestate Games have a common past. At some point the two groups split up and developed their own games. However, the similarities are still clearly visible.

What about hired ops today? After Hired Ops had been bobbing around as an early access title since 2016, the shooter then celebrated its official release in 2021. Two years later, the game’s lifetime is coming to an end. The already low number of players has continued to fall significantly and only 246 players played the shooter on average in April 2023 (via SteamCharts).

What is the problem? The biggest problem of the shooter is clearly the number of players.

The lobbies are rarely full and are often filled with bots. If you have real players in your match, they either come from far away countries like China and have a corresponding ping with them, or they cheat.

Despite the quite entertaining gunplay, nothing indicates that hired ops will experience a second spring. Since “Escape from Tarkov Arena” is also a competition in the same setting, a server shutdown is only a matter of time in my opinion.

Gundam Evolution

Genre: PvP shooter | Developer: Bandai Namco | Platform: PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S | Release date: September 20, 2022 | Model: Free2Play | Perspective: first person |

What kind of game is this? In Gundam Evolution, you slip into a “mobile suit unit,” which is a human-controlled fighting machine, and play 6v6 matches against other players.

The F2P shooter is based on the Gundam franchise known for anime, manga, movies and model kits.

The focus of the gameplay is mainly on speed and action. For example, your Gundam units have thrusters that you can use to move quickly and accelerate rapidly.

How are things today? Gundam Evolution? Although the shooter was only released in September 2022, it was never particularly convincing. On average, almost 16,700 people played the shooter in the month of release, but by October 2022 it was already 12,000 fewer. In April 2023, an average of 867 players were still playing the shooter (via SteamCharts).

What is the problem? In addition to the low number of players, which leads to a long search for players, the player reviews are not particularly convincing, only 52% of over 19,000 ratings are positive.

Players on Steam complain about poor balancing, poor performance and lags, as well as the fact that new characters are hidden behind a paywall.

Hyper charge

Genre: | Developer: | Platform: PC, Xbox, Switch | Release date: April 27, 2020 |
Model: Buy2Play | Perspective: first person |

What kind of game is this? In Hypercharge: Unboxed, you take on the role of a toy action figure and then engage in various toy battles. These lead you to a family’s garden, a toy store or a child’s room. The game is played in co-op against the AI ​​or against other players.

How is Hypercharge today? At least on Steam, the game has hardly any active players left. As I write the list, there are currently 13 people in the toy shooter (as of May 11, 2023) — in April it was an average of 75 (via SteamCharts).

What is the problem? Once again it’s the number of players: A PvP and co-op shooter simply cannot exist with less than 100 players. The reviews are very positive at 90%, but you can’t pay developers or server costs from praise.

Rainbow Six: Extractions

Genre: co-op shooter | Developer: Ubisoft | Platform: PC, Xbox Series, PS5 | Release Date: |
Model: Buy2Play | Perspective: |

What kind of game is this? With Rainbow Six: Extraction, Ubisoft released a PvE spin-off to their popular tactical shooter Rainbow Six: Siege, which focuses on the fight against an alien parasite that threatens the world.

You choose a so-called operator as your playable character and plunge into different missions with up to two other players. Each operator also has different skills and weapons.

How is Rainbow Six: Extraction doing today? Rainbow Six: Extraction is slated to receive new content in 2023, but communication lay flat between May and December 2022. There was no news about the shooter and even the R6E Twitter account was shut down. The PvE shooter is now also maintained by the “Rainbow Six: Siege” account.

What is the problem? I’m a huge fan of Rainbow Six: Siege (R6S) so it hurts to say this, but: Rainbow Six: Extraction (R6E) feels like a paid PvE expansion to RS6 that brought some new content and distractions should if you’ve just been bludgeoned into ranked by cheaters.

The problem is, we Rainbow Six players are gaming masochists and move on to the next match after a painful loss. We don’t buy a full price title to play our favorite characters in another game. We buy skins and put ourselves through the same agony again.

In addition, R6E shares the same problem as, for example, Back 4 Blood – it can quickly become repetitive and has too little content. The game just can’t compete with a Destiny 2 or Warframe.

If you prefer to read about shooters that are supposed to be released in 2023 instead of about dying players, you will also find what you are looking for on MeinMMO:

The 7 most exciting online shooters scheduled for release in 2023