A Sniper Elite battle-royale spin-off announced just three months ago has reportedly been canceled after losing funding from Chinese gaming giant Tencent.
The news comes via Insider Gaming, which didn’t give a concrete reason for why Tencent was backing out of the project but said may be related to the high-profile failure of Sony’s live-service FPS Concord. Insider Gaming reports the “higher-ups” at Sniper Elite developer Rebellion implied during meetings with staff that Tencent may have become “skittish” about live-service projects after Concord’s disastrous launch: a misfire that ultimately led to its developer, Firewalk Studios, shutting down.
Code-named Project Archipelago but internally referred to as Sniper Island, the battle royale would have had sniper teams of three battling to become the last squad standing as part of what Rebellion labeled as a “new IP.” Early alpha playtests for the game happened in August, shortly after the game was announced.
GameSpot reached out to Rebellion for comment and will update if we receive a response. According to Insider Gaming, no one is being laid off as part of the cancellation. Those who were working on Project Archipelago have been moved to other projects. One of those projects is Sniper Elite: Resistance, the next main entry in the long-running third-person-shooter franchise slated to release in January.
Sniper Elite: Resistance will feature a campaign that runs in parallel to that of Sniper Elite 5, as players infiltrate occupied France during World War 2 as part of the French resistance. In addition to a campaign mode, the game also features 16-player multiplayer and a three-player survival mode. It additionally brings back the fan-favorite Axis Invasion mode, where those playing campaign can opt in to have enemy players infiltrate the opposing forces’ ranks (or do the infiltrating themselves), raising the stakes of the game’s sniper-centric battles.