Fairgames is a live-service title being developed by Haven Studios, a studio founded by Jade Raymond in 2021 and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Fairgames was unveiled on May 31, 2023, by the studio’s creative director, Mathieu Leduc.
The studio was in high spirits when they pulled the lid off their debut project and new IP, calling it “a fresh, modern take on the heist genre”. However, the fate of the game is now hanging in the balance after a recent closed playtest concluded with invited players unimpressed, according to a recent report.
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Further suggesting that all may not be well in Haven Studios is last week’s leadership shake-up. No new gameplay footage has been released since the official announcement. On May 16, 2025, Raymond left the studio, unceremoniously.
Sony has maintained that it is still committed to Haven and Fairgames. However, a new info from Sacred Symbols podcast (episode 360) by Last Stand Media, which is locked behind Patreon’s paywall, suggest that pre-alpha version of the game—codenamed Project Hearts—was shared to a small group of playtesters via PSN, and that the feedback was “far from encouraging”.
Fairgames was described as “Super Clunky”
Fairgames is an ambitious project which, according to Leduc, “came from a desire to create a new type of PVP game with emergent sandbox gameplay”. The intention was to create a Fortnite and The Division hybrid.
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In Fairgames, players are dropped into large urban maps in teams of three to four with the objective of infiltrating vaults and stealing from the rich. Rival teams will attempt to do the same. While the idea sounded promising, the playtesters described the gameplay as “super clunky” and unpolished.
With the uninspiring details of the playtest assessment, Fairgames may eventually be scrapped by Sony, who have done the same for several live-service titles after Concord’s colossal flop.
However, there is still hope for Fairgames considering the fact that what playtesters experienced was a pre-alpha build, which means the developers still have time to fix any of the issues raised before the 2026 rumored launch window.
