Stormgate Rushes in an Offline Patch as Its Server Partner Winds Down at the End of April

Stormgate is getting an offline lifeline because its online backbone is disappearing. Frost Giant told players on its official Discord that Hathora, the game's server orchestration partner, has been purchased by an AI company and will wind down service at the end of April 2026. That means the multiplayer outage is no longer a distant risk. It is a scheduled problem the studio now has to work around in real time.

What Frost Giant says is happening

The studio's message, echoed in reporting from Kotaku and PC Gamer, is unusually direct. Frost Giant says the Hathora shutdown will create a planned outage for Stormgate's multiplayer modes. To keep the game playable, the team says Stormgate will be patched so it can run offline before the service winds down. The company also says it hopes to restore online play later, but only if it can secure a new partner to support ongoing operations.

Why this lands hard

Stormgate was pitched as a modern RTS built by veterans from the StarCraft and Warcraft side of Blizzard. That background created large expectations around long-term competition, co-op, and community infrastructure. So even if the game remains playable offline, the loss of online modes hits the part of the product many players considered central to its future. This is not just a routine outage. It is a structural downgrade in what the game can be at the end of April.

The preservation lesson

The story also exposes a recurring problem across PC gaming: online dependency is often outsourced until the day that outside provider changes priorities. In this case, Frost Giant is not describing a balance problem or a planned sunset after years of decline. It is saying the underlying service layer is being redirected by an acquisition. That is a different kind of fragility, and it makes offline support look less like a nice extra and more like basic insurance.

For Stormgate, the immediate outcome is clear. Frost Giant is trying to preserve access to the game with an offline patch before the end-of-April shutdown. The unresolved question is whether the studio can rebuild the online side later, or whether one of the most visible post-Blizzard RTS projects is about to become a much smaller game than players originally backed.