During the festive season here at TheGamer, we tend to publish a bunch of features that are full of bittersweet nostalgia, or hopeful anticipation of what’s in store for us in the world of video games next year. 2026 looks like it’s going to be one for the history books, albeit only because every other studio in the world will be hoping Rockstar actually sticks to its guns and releases Grand Theft Auto 6 when it says it will.
My angle is a little bit different. Some nostalgia, admittedly, but mostly just a bottomless festive pit of moaning and despair. 2026 is the year I hope live service games die.
This is a pipedream. A hail mary. They make far too much money to ever truly perish, but only the ones that succeed. For every mammoth like Fortnite, there are a dozen abject failures like Concord. In 2026, I want the industry to get a grip and start developing some good old-fashioned video games.
Call Of Duty
We’ve recently received news that Activision will be ‘moving away’ from its rigid yearly rotation of Call Of Duty Black Ops and Modern Warfare, and while I’m certain that doesn’t mean more than a year between games, it does fill me with hope that a studio (and series) that I once loved is able to get back on track and start producing the stellar shooters it’s known for.
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The live service model has hollowed out Call Of Duty as we know it. Beavis and Butthead skins run rampant, and the same-old shoveled out rubbish is regurgitated every year, the series resting entirely on its laurels of video games that came out over a decade ago. I was just talking about the original Black Ops campaign with a colleague, and we both said that sometimes, at random moments, we hear Reznov charging through the prison, “Spear the winged beast!” That was some good eating.
My fondness of the early Call Of Duty games and their campaigns runs deep. Call Of Duty: Finest Hour was my first exposure to an FPS game with a good campaign, and Call Of Duty 2 was also a banger. While Modern Warfare 2019 was a brief return to that greatness, the series has faltered at every turn since, with a hyper-focus on live service gubbins to keep the board happy.
Battlefield 6
The live service model is also going to gut Battlefield 6. I love this game; it’s number two on my Game Of The Year list with over 400 hours played. However, its most recent update has broken absolutely everything in the game in a way that suggests the patch was rushed out the door, mishandled by a studio that had managed to rekindle some of its reputation after the disaster that was Battlefield 2042 with a stellar BF6 launch.
Once upon a time, Battlefield had large DLC packs, often with several maps released at once in a general theme. These were faulty at their core because the maps cost money, and those that didn’t pay were kept away from those who did.. It split the playerbase. The new Battlefield 6 live service model eliminates this problem, but causes several others. Updates are rushed to align with a fixed content rollout. Each season must have multiple maps, events, gadgets, guns, and vehicles. And they arrive at set times. Testing becomes optional. Deadlines do not.
Battlefield Studios’ desire to appeal to every facet of the market, with a tacked-on Battle Royale which I only foresee a slow and miserable death for, has led to dropping player numbers. It’s a fantastic game, don’t get me wrong, but unfortunately, I just expect so much more from an IP with as much storied history as Battlefield. ‘Fantastic’ shouldn’t feel like a compromise.
Apex Legends
Apex Legends is another game I love, or at least loved. I’ve accrued thousands of hours in Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale over the years, though I haven’t played for quite some time. Eventually, I found the live service grind to be a bit exhausting, with a constant rotation of new characters and map changes keeping the game artificially fresh. If you return after six months, you have no clue what’s going on. You come back disoriented and overwhelmed.
Back in the day, Respawn Entertainment produced Titanfall and Titanfall 2 within two years of each other. Both are exceptional shooters, with Titanfall 2 widely considered a cult classic with some of the best movement tech and campaign in modern FPS games. Rather than produce anything new, there’s a crew that is working on Apex Legends day in, day out, with a constant churn of new content.
The live service model feels dated, and yet I know it’s not going anywhere. If I could ask Santa for one thing this year, it would be this: let 2026 be the year the industry remembers how to stop chasing engagement metrics and start making incredible games again.
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