The last few years have been unforgivable for the emergence of live-service games. Games with multi-year development cycles are being discontinued within a few months due to shorter launch periods. This is the sad reality of games that depend on healthy player numbers to function; If you don't have early momentum, your player population is unlikely to recover.
This has been the case for King of Meat, a game co-developed by Amazon and Glomed. You may remember Geoff Keighley's animated version from King of Meat's reveal trailer at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024, or you may read Harry Alston's preview of the game from the same convention. Or maybe you've never heard of Meat King, but have a morbid curiosity for failed multiplayer projects developed by well-funded studios.
Regicide
Flesh King was a co-op dungeon crawler with a user-made map, but unfortunately, the game never took off. Amazon and Glowmade announced today that Meat King is shutting down on April 9, 2026, and that everyone who purchased the game will receive a refund.
“Despite the creativity and innovation Glomed brought to King of Meat, the game unfortunately did not find the audience we had hoped for,” the statement begins. “As a result, we have made the difficult decision to end our investment in the game, and King of Meat's servers will shut down on April 9, 2026. Players will be able to access and play all existing content until then, so we encourage you to enjoy the rest of your time in the game with your fellow competitors.”
It's clear from the concurrent player numbers on Steam that Meat King never really got off the ground, as the game only reached 320 concurrent players. This number quickly dropped to single digits as the weeks rolled on. As I write this article, only one player remains to play Meat King on Steam; They can be considered the nickname emperor of meat.
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Since its release, the number of players has been decreasing.
Flesh King's console numbers remain unknown, but apparently there wasn't enough traction on the platforms for Amazon and Glomade to continue supporting the game.
King of Meat sits on a very positive review score on Steam, with 71 percent of reviews marked as positive. It's clear that people enjoyed their time with the game, even if they didn't stick with it for very long.
Meat King is another in a long line of live-service projects that failed and then promptly shut down. It's a sad end for any project that people poured their heart and soul into.
king of meat
- issued
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October 2, 2025
- ESRB
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Juvenile / Blood and gore, crude humor, language, violence, in-game purchases, user interaction
- developer(s)
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Glomed
- Publisher(s)
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Amazon Games
