Live games are dying and Crimson Moon knows it

The modern video game industry is currently undergoing a massive structural change as the unsustainable gold rush for endless monetization of live services officially dries up. One of the best recent examples is Bungie's decision to effectively end all planned Live Services support Fate 2 with one last major update, marking the death of one of the genre's greatest pioneers and casting a shadow of doom and gloom over the genre itself. As a result of this industry-wide decline, more traditional standalone titles such as MaybeMonsters' Crimson Moon are emerging to claim a jaded player base that favors complete experiences over those that promise to evolve.

In response to this widespread consumer exhaustion, many forward-thinking developers like MaybeMonsters are abandoning multi-year seasonal plans altogether in favor of projects that offer players the entire experience from the ground up. I recently spoke with MaybeMonsters Product Director Mark Subotnick and Game Director David Lesperance Crimson Moon to discuss the team's own creative pivot towards this impending reality after deciding to abandon their live service roots and instead turn to creating something with a clear beginning and end. In short, their upcoming action-adventure RPG Gothic High Renaissance represents a major course correction for the studio, prioritizing total player satisfaction over day-to-day maintenance.

Crimson Moon shift from seasonal bloating

Crimson Moon character fighting a monster

Despite being founded in 2016, MaybeMonsters has only been in the public eye for about 7 years, so I was curious about the studio's inner journey and how it ended up here. Responding and diving into the long-term evolution of MaybeMonsters, Subotnick was quite blunt about the financial pressures game studios are facing right now. As he explained, MaybeMonsters was created at a time when a lot of money was flowing into video games, especially from investors who believed that live-service games were the future.

Presumably, Monsters originally built several in-house teams on this idea, with the studio working on online games to keep players coming back for years. However, over time the market changed and the company had to take a hard look at whether a future rooted in this industry still made sense. According to Subotnick, studio management ultimately decided that chasing live viewers was too risky, so they moved toward projects with clearer goals, stronger creative identities, and a definitive endpoint:

We've had some success, but we don't want to repeat that. We also look at what's on our list. It's a bunch of games with live services. Well, maybe it needs to be reconsidered. So we do. And there were a lot of changes made—and it's all documented in other people's articles and history—but Dave and his team were pretty much what we looked at and said, “Well, it's going to stay. It's, A, not a live service game, and B, beautiful, they believe in Dave's mission.

A co-op game of Crimson Moon characters standing guard

This move away from live service games also influenced the way Monsters was probably approached Crimson Moon. Instead of building the game around daily quests, tedious progression, or game systems meant to keep players logged in forever, the team focused on creating something much tighter and more restrained. Lesperance described this philosophy as “an approach to single malt whisky”, meaning the aim was to provide a more refined experience without diluting:

The philosophy we have is that it is a single malt whisky. We wanted a very distilled experience. We didn't make a live service game. We wanted to create something that really harkened back to what made gaming fun and exciting, especially when I was growing up.

Lesperance further emphasized how Crimson Moon is built on action RPG mechanics that are meant to feel good right away while giving players a clear sense of progression. The result is a more traditional game with a defined beginning, middle and end, rather than one designed for endless engagement. By cutting out the artificial filler, MaybeMonsters tries to make every part Crimson Moon feel like it's there for a reason—narrative, mechanical, or otherwise.

How Crimson Moon stands out in a saturated market

Moving away from the live services model also gives Crimson Moon a much more prominent place in a crowded market. Lots of multiplayer games compete for everyone's time, but Crimson Moon it is built as a complete game with a clear price and end point. Subotnick said that positioning the game as a premium double-A game with triple-A polish gives MaybeMonsters a chance to appeal to players who want something polished without being asked to treat one game as a second job:

It's also nice to see a game in this genre with a rich color palette, and it's nice to see hot metal mixed with this genre. We think these things, as well as all the answers Dave just gave you, give us a little bit of differentiation in a crowded place. We can stand out and give the consumer a really clear value proposition, a high-quality AA game that has a certain AAA feel and refinement and some unique aspects that give people a reason to jump in and experience it.

For players tired of battle passes, daily checklists, and games built around constant engagement, this approach clearly appeals. Crimson Moon is first presented as a ready-made action RPG, helping the studio build trust with an audience that has seen too many live-service games fizzle out and fizzle out. In a market where so many online games are fighting for survival, a focused traditional release can feel surprisingly fresh.

Crimson Moon character fighting a giant monster

Ultimately, the team's refusal to build an endless ecosystem of live services shifts the primary focus of development back to pure entertainment. In a traditional live service game, difficulty curves and progression systems are often manipulated to force players into microtransactions or artificial timegate loops. Crimson Moonon the other hand, it utilizes traditional mechanical mastery while allowing the audience to fully dictate their own pace and overall challenge level.

Lesperance pointed out that the introduction of optional co-op scaling and variable difficulty balancing allows the game to be more skill-friendly without compromising its core vision. This kind of player-first philosophy respects individual agency and ensures that those looking for a real challenge are rewarded alongside casual players who just want a great story. If nothing else, it serves as a reminder that games succeed when they value the player's time and intelligence—a sentiment Lesperance echoed in a closing statement about his hope for the game's adoption:

First, I hope they talk about how fun the game is. For me, that's part of it. That's why we do it, man. It's supposed to be fun. Difficulty is a really important aspect of the game and we want players to understand the joy of going through difficult experiences. But we also let players choose the weight they put on the bar.

Crimson Moon is something of a blueprint for the post-service era

The struggles in the live services market have made games like Crimson Moon feeling more valuable than they might have a few years ago. Perhaps Monsters saw the risks of endless involvement and chose instead a more focused path, giving Crimson Moon a stronger identity as players become more selective over time. A dark fantasy action-RPG with a clear scope, premium structure, and defined endpoint now feels like a smart answer to a market crowded with games that demand constant attention.

Crimson Moon it also reflects a growing desire for games that are complete from the start. Players still want a fulfilling game and plenty of reasons to keep playing, but they also want to feel like their time is being respected. By building on the fun, player agency, and more traditional structure of action RPGs, MaybeMonsters makes clear evidence that focused, polished games still have an important place in the future of the industry.