Spectre Divide Shuts Down: Why it Failed

After just six grueling months, Mountaintop Studios’ Spectre Divide announces its shutdown. Spectre Divide had high hopes of entering the competitive shooter market by introducing unique ideas, namely the tactical ability to control two characters.

While the idea is unique, it failed to redefine the competitive shooting landscape, as it failed to capture an audience even with constant updates and improvements. Here are some possible reasons why Spectre Divide failed to survive in an extremely competitive and established genre in the industry.

Why Spectre Divide Failed So Quickly

One of the biggest challenges in entering the competitive shooter genre is innovating the landscape. Valorant entered the scene and introduced “Agents” or heroes with unique skills, combining those mechanics with Counter-Strike’s gameplay formula, which has been successful for decades.

Spectre Divide’s goal was to create a similar team-based-rounds shooter with fewer players but added a little more activity by giving players the power to control two separate characters independently. It is a 3v3 shooter, but technically a 6v6 since players have two lives per round because of their “Spectre.”

The game is unique, but you must do more than that in an extremely established industry. Having a Spectre may seem fun at first, as it offers a lot of tactical possibilities that are rarely seen in other competitive games. However, it does feel like the essence of the game didn’t quite hit home. It needed a little bit more.

Apart from the industry’s competitive landscape, they did a few things right. The developers also hired an FPS legend, Shroud, as their Lead Gameplay Advisor. Still, the game looked like it was marketed as his, especially when Shroud announced it on his social media platforms.

Shroud mainly worked on the gameplay and shooting mechanics, which is amazing as Shroud should know what would “feel” right for FPS players to enjoy the game. Shroud has experience playing in the biggest stages in FPS tournaments and has also gained experience trying out new FPS games as one of the planet’s biggest streamers. His opinion probably had more impact than any other person in the market, which was Spectre Divide’s main draw.

The Unexpected Big Leak

When Spectre Divide was about to release on September 3, 2024, there was a lot of hype surrounding Valve’s new hero shooter game, Deadlock. The game had a few leaks back in May, but the hype ramped up during the middle of August when The Verge practically announced the game, which was still in its early development stages.

It was considered a leak because the game says, “Don’t share anything,” but no NDAs were handed out upon opening the game.

After the news, Valve eventually “opened” Deadlock to everyone through its unique beta invitation system, where players with access to Deadlock could invite their friends to play. Because of this approach, the player influx was staggered across a few months leading up to Spectre Divide’s closed beta test and launch date.

Deadlock drew all the headlines, even getting Shroud hopelessly addicted to the game for weeks with stream titles like “addiction forever and always.”

When it came to Spectre Divide’s launch, it was somewhat successful as the game peaked at 26,000 concurrent players. Shroud played the game on launch, including the day after, but immediately switched back to Deadlock.

Spectre Divide lost 80% of its player base in a month, averaging only 400 players in its third month. That is a significant drop. During the same time, Deadlock’s concurrent players spiked to 150,000, which is considered a direct competitor since it is a 5v5 hero shooter MOBA.

Spectre Divide had many problems, but they needed more players for feedback, and to their credit, they were actively listening to players and listening to help improve the game.

They made a big push for season 1, but players were already uninterested in the game. After Spectre Divide’s season 1 release on February 25, another big player entered the competitive shooter landscape: FragPunk.

With another setback, Nate and the Mountaintop team delivered a heartbreaking message and decided to shut down the game in the next 30 days, giving it until April before it goes offline.

While the game might not have captured an audience, the team’s passion and commitment to their vision are commendable.