Remember that moment when a game just clicks? When you’re fumbling through tutorials and suddenly everything makes sense. The controls feel perfect. The action flows like water. You can’t put the controller down because you’ve found that magical sweet spot that makes gaming so special.
Well, PlayStation‘s upcoming shooter FairGames hasn’t found that magic yet. The game is stuck in what every developer dreads: the dreaded “it’s not fun” phase.
According to a recent report making waves in gaming circles, FairGames is struggling to nail down its core gameplay during pre-alpha testing. The news comes from gaming insider Tom Henderson through Insider Gaming. For those keeping track, Henderson has been pretty reliable with PlayStation scoops lately.
“Insider Gaming/Tom Henderson – PlayStation’s FairGames Struggles to ‘Find The Fun’ in Latest Pre-Alpha Playtest” – u/nolifebr on r/PS5
This hits differently when you think about it. We’ve all played games that felt like they were almost there but missing something crucial. Maybe the shooting felt too floaty. Maybe the objectives were confusing. Maybe it just felt like work instead of play.
The phrase “finding the fun” is developer speak for one of the hardest parts of making games. It’s that indefinable quality that separates good games from great ones. It’s why some shooters become legends while others get forgotten in a month.
For FairGames, this struggle feels especially important. PlayStation has been betting big on live service games lately. They want their own Fortnite or Apex Legends. But those games succeeded because they nailed the fun factor from day one. They felt incredible to play even in their roughest early states.
This news also comes at an interesting time for PlayStation exclusives. Remember when their first-party games were automatic day-one purchases? The Last of Us, God of War, Spider-Man. These were games that just worked. They felt polished and complete from the moment you loaded them up.
But lately, things have been bumpier. Some recent PlayStation games have launched with mixed reactions. Others have been delayed multiple times. It’s starting to feel like the magic formula that made PlayStation exclusives so special is getting harder to replicate.
The competitive shooter space is also incredibly crowded right now. You’ve got established giants like Call of Duty and Valorant. You’ve got newcomers trying to make their mark. Players have so many options that a new shooter needs to be absolutely stellar to grab attention.
FairGames was announced as part of PlayStation’s push into live service gaming. The concept sounded promising: a competitive shooter with a heist theme. Think Ocean’s Eleven meets online multiplayer. The idea has potential to be something really special.
But potential doesn’t matter if the core gameplay doesn’t click. Players can smell a boring shooter from a mile away. The gunplay needs to feel crisp. The maps need to flow well. The progression system needs to keep people coming back. All of these pieces have to work together perfectly.
The good news is that FairGames is still in pre-alpha. This is exactly the right time to identify these problems. Better to struggle with fun factor now than launch a mediocre game later. Some of gaming’s biggest successes went through similar growing pains during development.
Overwatch famously started as a completely different type of game before Blizzard found the hero shooter formula. Fortnite was originally a co-op survival game before the battle royale mode took over the world. Sometimes the best games come from developers willing to scrap what isn’t working and start fresh.
PlayStation has the resources to get this right. They have talented developers who know how to make great games. They have the budget to iterate and polish until FairGames finds its groove. Most importantly, they have the luxury of time since the game doesn’t have a firm release date yet.
The gaming community is watching to see how this plays out. PlayStation’s reputation for quality exclusives is on the line. Fans want to believe that the company that gave us so many incredible single-player experiences can also nail the multiplayer space.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see how FairGames evolves. Hopefully the development team takes all the time they need to find that special sauce that makes great shooters so addictive. The gaming world has enough mediocre multiplayer games already.
If PlayStation can crack the code and make FairGames truly fun to play, it could be their ticket into the competitive gaming big leagues. If not, it might be another reminder that making great games is harder than it looks, even for the industry’s biggest names.
