Stormgate to Go Offline-Only Due to Server Provider Acquisition

Stormgate, a popular strategy game, is facing a significant change as it is set to go offline-only by the end of April. This decision comes following the acquisition of the game’s server provider, Hathora, by an AI company. The multiplayer modes of Stormgate will no longer be available online due to this transition.

Frost Giant Studios, the developers of Stormgate, made the announcement on the game’s official Discord server, notifying players of the upcoming changes. The acquisition of Hathora by an AI company means that the server provider will no longer support online games, leading to the planned outage of Stormgate’s multiplayer modes.

While Stormgate will receive a patch that allows offline play, online modes will be disabled until a new partner is found to support ongoing operations. The developers expressed their gratitude to the community of players and promised to provide updates on the situation, including details on how offline mode will function and the possibility of future patches.

Upon visiting Hathora’s website, it was evident that the server provider had been acquired by Fireworks AI, with plans to discontinue services for game companies within 90 days. Nitrado’s GameFabric server hosting infrastructure was chosen as the exclusive transition partner for existing Hathora-using studios to avoid online downtime for their games.

Fireworks AI intends to focus on compute orchestration for AI inference at scale, utilizing the resources and expertise of Hathora’s team. This shift in priorities will see Hathora’s infrastructure support being redirected towards AI-related workloads, rather than game server hosting.

Notable games that were powered by Hathora’s server infrastructure, such as Splitgate 2 and Stormgate, will be affected by this transition. The acquisition by Fireworks AI marks a new direction for the company, emphasizing low-latency compute orchestration for AI applications across diverse infrastructure.

Considering the impact on game developers and studios, efforts are being made to find alternative server providers to minimize disruption to online gameplay. Frost Giant Studios and other affected studios are actively seeking new partners to ensure the continuity of their online services.

In a review of Stormgate, it was described as a promising game with some initial flaws. The developers are urged to swiftly secure new server providers to maintain the game’s accessibility and functionality for players.