Amazon Games announced its cooperative action game 2025 The king of meat it will end service on April 9, 2026, barely six months after launch. The decision to shut down comes as part of a broader curtailment of Amazon's live gaming ambitions after years of high-profile disruptions and shutdowns. According to The king of meat developer Glowmade, the game hasn't found the audience and player count that both the developer and Amazon Games were aiming for, with projections hoping for around 100,000 concurrent players, but the Steam leaderboards hit an all-time high of 320 three months ago, with 9 players online at the time of writing.
The king of meat launched cross-platform on October 7, 2025 as a four-player PVE dungeon crawler combining chaotic combat with platforming mechanics. Despite the initial enthusiasm in some corners of the community, industry reports indicate that the game has struggled to attract players in large numbers, as evidenced by the Steam charts. Due to its imminent retirement, players will still be able to enjoy it The king of meat until its servers shut down on April 9, 2026, and all purchases will be fully refunded as announced by the publisher. This is another live service game that Amazon Games has discontinued, the most prominent example being New world.
Highguard confirms a new content update coming this week, despite speculation of an imminent shutdown
Highguard developer Wildlight Entertainment confirms that a new update will arrive later this week with new content for players to try out.
Amazon Games brings King of Meat to life with the game
The king of meat is not an isolated case. Over the past decade, Amazon's forays into live services and online titles have been marred by a series of server outages and outages. From ambitious MMOs to competitive shooters with live services, several projects have never achieved the sustained community engagement Amazon hoped for.
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Canceled or discontinued live service titles, games that are about to shut down or end service
- Detachment – Competitive online team play was canceled before launch.
- Crucible – A free-to-play team-based shooter that launched in 2020 and was discontinued the same year due to lack of traction. Unlike Detachment, Crucible was a live service title.
- The Lord of the Rings MMO (multiple attempts) – Highly anticipated lord of the rings An MMORPG that has been delayed more than once due to restructuring and strategic shifts, the most recent being in 2025.
- The king of meat – Service to end live PVE title in April 2026 after lower than expected number of players and sustain them.
- New World: Aeternum – Amazon's flagship MMORPG, released in 2021, New worldThe company's servers will be permanently shut down on January 31, 2027, with content development already halted and digital store availability halted.
Amazon's mixed results, highlighted by ambitious live services projects that either never found an audience or stagnated after launch, underscore the volatility of online gaming and the challenge of sustaining player engagement over the long term. FROM Crucible's with quick removal for an extended finish New worldpublishers often face a difficult economic calculus when servers fail to deliver expected retention and monetization.
As The king of meat is gearing up to close next month, Amazon Games appears to be reassessing its portfolio, refocusing efforts on publishing partnerships and other entertainment ventures rather than maintaining a large stable of its own live-service titles. Just like The king of meatShutting down a game can hurt, it's another example of how uncertain the future of live service gaming can be, especially High Guardianthe current status of the user.
In fact, although not owned by Amazon, High Guardian's website is now offline following a round of layoffs at Wildlight Entertainment, and it's unclear whether the game is clinging to life thanks to a new content update or is about to shut down as The king of meat. High GuardianThe story is not too different from that of Amazon Crucibleand both in turn are adjacent to what happened with Concord. Although The king of meatThe impending end of the service is sad, shedding light on the expectations of live service games and why those projections can lead to failure.
