Space Junkies (2019), the multiplayer sci-fi arena shooter from Ubisoft Montpellier, has reached a pretty significant impasse; the studio is pulling its previously planned support for the flatscreen version of the game, and issuing its final update on PSVR and PC VR headsets.

In a brief blog post, the studio says that they’re no longer actively developing for Space Junkies. The servers will still be open to VR players, although if you’re looking for more content from the multiplayer arena shooter, you’re out of luck.

Here’s the full statement below:

Hello Spacers,

We will be bringing the Space Junkies non-VR open beta to a close on Wednesday August 28th at 9am UTC.

While this is the end of our journey in terms of development of the game, the team is proud to have achieved what we set out to do: create a fun and fast-paced competitive FPS in VR.

The game servers will remain open and accessible to players who purchased the VR version of Space Junkies so that Spacers can continue to take on each other in the many community tournaments we’ve seen since launch.

The current plan, however, is to not release the non-VR version of the game.

Be sure to join our official Discord to keep in touch with other Spacers.

Released in March 2019 on PC VR headsets and PSVR, we gave Space Junkies a solid [7.7/10] in our review, noting however that the admittedly standard arena shooter experience would need more than smooth visuals and Unreal Tournament-style gameplay to keep users happy in the long run.

SEE ALSO
Google Prepares Support for XR Headsets on Play Store, Marking The Next Chapter in XR Competition

After launch, the studio issued several updates and also organized multiple community events in an effort to stimulate ongoing user support. The game was most recently featured by ESL in Season 3 of the VR League, which saw over $25,000 go to finals winners.

Although it seems fairly early to call it quits—it’s only been a little over five months since launch—Space Junkies has benefited from the most updates and developer attention as far as Ubisoft VR titles go.

Many of Ubisoft’s VR games have basically languished after launch, including Eagle Flight (2016), Werewolves Within (2016), Transference (2018) and the VR mode in Trackmania Turbo (2016), with Star Trek: Bridge Crew (2017) as the sole exception thanks to its paid DLC centered on the Next Generation missions.

So while it seems Ubisoft has basically been treating VR as an experiment since the hardware’s general launch in 2016, it’s clear the company hasn’t given up on VR as a whole. Unearthed by VRFocus, Ubisoft is apparently hiring a 50-person team to lead an unannounced ‘AAA’ VR title now, so the company as a whole seems far from deterred.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.

  • Yep, expected that one. What a waste.

  • Raphael

    This is fecking hilarious. All that development and alpha/beta testing open to public over many months… the planned launch across multiple VR platforms…. then they launch the game with an insane price no one wants to pay. Then after months they begin to realise people posting on their twitter about the game being priced to oblivion… Now they abandon the game.

    I predicted this but I didn’t see it coming this soon.

  • kakek

    Why is there so much competitive Multiplayer shooters in VR when it’s so obviously not what VR player want the most ?

    • doug

      I wonder this too. Single player content must be tougher to code than any of us realize. Is voice acting the problem? Obviously it’s a big deal to hire voice actors, but some single player games do without it entirely, it certainly isn’t a must. Is questing tough to code? Landscapes are easier than ever, right? SMH…

      • dogtato

        AI, more maps, have to write some kind of story, scripted events, needs to be more than a couple hours of non-repeating content

  • Jarilo

    This game when I got it surprised me, at first it was almost a shocker at how good it played and felt. Then 3 rounds in I’m liking, okay…..so now what? This game would have been awesome with a 10 hour deep campaign. The controls and VR mechanics were great, just burnt out of all the round to round MP only stuff to be honest.

  • gothicvillas

    It was way overpriced to gain any ground. I didnt bother then and now I think it’s too late.

  • Tailgun

    Have to say I was really proud of one of my favorite design studios supporting VR from such an early stage but now I’m getting a bit annoyed. Seems all they want to do is crank out multiplayer-only games to what they have to know is still a small user base, add no single-player content to almost any of it – then quit when the predictable results end up right where everyone said they would.

  • What a pity. I loved the game… even if the multiplayer idea was not that smart

  • Alextended

    It’s a good game, I dunno why people are bashing them for not continuing to update it forever. It’s polished, solid, with a pretty good amount of content and modes of play for what it is. The low player count is an issue but at least it hasn’t been a problem to find people to play with for me (since you only need a few people to get a match going, it’s not some 32 or 100 player deathmatch, just 4 or 6 people).

    I don’t think Ubisoft is “quitting” or “abandoning” the game, they just completed it. Yeah it would have been cool if it became a “game as a service” as popular as the likes of Overwatch with, indeed, updates for forever, but it’s a VR game so, yeah. They still provided pretty good updates past the original launch.

    We’ll see what you lot say when Splinter Cell VR also fails to sell a ton of copies, somehow it will be their fault again? It’s just VR as a platform for now, unless something is super mainstream and popular like Beat Saber it’s not gonna do gangbusters for now.

    Ubisoft seem more aware than some people here since they’re not abandoning VR just because they finished up with this game and they have more VR games coming, yay. I hope Splinter Cell VR will be something like Espire 1 with higher production values and polish.

  • Ace of Spades

    What a waste of money and resources, these companies should just ask Gamers what we wont, and 99.9% of us definitely DON’T WANT MP Arena Trash games.