With Stormgate servers going offline, any hope of an esports scene surviving is likely gone. Those interested are probably interested in the remaining RTS classic tournament still around. 

Frost Giant Studios has revealed that Stormgate’s online multiplayer modes will go offline following the shutdown of its server infrastructure partner. And while the game was already on the decline, the kicker was not the game itself, but its server provider pivoting to AI.

An AI company (indirectly) killed Stormgate’s remaining community esports scene

The news comes from an official community post in the game’s Discord. Gobsmack, one of the CMs, posted that the studio had some unfortunate news to share. The game server orchestration partner, Hathora, has been acquired by an AI company and will wind down its services by the end of April.

The update would create planned outages for Stormgate’s multiplayer modes. In response, the developers are working to make the game playable offline. That way, players can still play the co-op content they purchased alongside battling AI bots. However, playing multiplayer is no longer supported.

The game is not entirely dead, however.

The devs have said that they are open to restoring online play if they find the right partner. This will come in a future patch, but as it stands, the game is on life support. At least the devs are respecting the “don’t kill games” movement by making it playable offline.

For traditional esports fans, this may come as not-so-big, yet saddening, news. RTS was the dominant esports genre in the 2000s, and StarCraft II’s launch in 2010 helped propel modern esports titles in the age of streaming. It later captured other audiences in MOBAs and RTS-like games, which were growing alongside classics like Counter-Strike.

Stormgate had a small esports scene, with some tournaments offering prize pools of around $10,000. However, prize funding dropped hard, going from $10,000 official events to sub-$100 community tournaments within the year. 2026 hasn’t seen much else besides some classic community tournaments.

With the servers going offline, any hope of an esports scene surviving is likely gone. Those interested are probably better off following the remaining RTS classic tournaments.