Sony Finally Pulls the Plug on Destruction AllStars After Years of Struggles

The once-hyped PS5 multiplayer exclusive is shutting down for good, adding another rough chapter to Sony’s live-service journey.

Every console generation has that one game people barely remember existed. For the PlayStation 5, Destruction AllStars might be that game. Sony has officially confirmed that the online servers for Destruction AllStars will shut down on November 25, bringing an end to the chaotic multiplayer car-combat game that launched during the early days of the PS5.

The game has already been removed from the PlayStation Store, along with all virtual currency tied to it. Some offline content will still work for existing players, including arcade and single-player challenges, but the online experience — which was the main focus of the game — is disappearing completely.

When Destruction AllStars was first shown during Sony’s big PS5 reveal period, reactions were mixed right from the start. The idea sounded fun on paper: colorful arenas, destructive vehicles, over-the-top characters, and fast multiplayer action. But once people actually got their hands on it, many felt the game never fully delivered on that promise.

The biggest complaint? The combat felt oddly limited.

Players kept asking the same question: why are there no real weapons? For a game built around smashing cars into each other, many expected rockets, machine guns, explosions, and pure chaos. Instead, the gameplay leaned more toward bumping and crashing vehicles while occasionally running around on foot. It looked flashy, but for a lot of players, it lacked the madness that makes vehicular combat games memorable.

That’s why comparisons to Twisted Metal never stopped. Many fans believed Sony would have had a better shot reviving that classic franchise instead of launching a brand-new IP nobody was attached to. A Twisted Metal project had actually been in development at one point before being cancelled, which only made the situation feel even stranger.

The problems didn’t end there. After launch in February 2021, Destruction AllStars reportedly struggled to keep players around. Matchmaking became an issue pretty quickly, and reports started circulating that bots were being added into matches just to fill lobbies and shorten wait times.

Sony also seemed unsure about how to sell the game.

It was originally planned as a full-priced release before eventually landing on PlayStation Plus in an attempt to boost player numbers. Later, the price dropped even further. But despite those efforts, the game never really found a stable audience.  Now, more than five years later, the shutdown feels like another reminder that live-service games are incredibly difficult to sustain — even for companies as massive as Sony. 

Of course, not every live-service project from Sony has struggled. Helldivers 2 became a huge hit, and Gran Turismo continues to perform well with its online-focused model. But for every success, there have been several projects that either failed quietly or never made it out the door at all.

That’s what makes this shutdown stand out. Destruction AllStars wasn’t just another multiplayer game — it was one of Sony’s earliest attempts to push deeper into the live-service space during the PS5 era. Instead, it slowly faded into the background while players moved on.

Now the servers are going dark, the game is gone from the store, and most people are only remembering it because of the shutdown announcement itself. So here’s the real question: how many more live-service experiments can Sony afford before players stop getting excited altogether?