Deceive Inc. won't die quietly — community servers are coming after studio closure

Tripwire Interactive announced on July 16 that Deceive Inc. — the PvP spy-thriller shooter from the now-closed Sweet Bandits — is getting a full backend rebuild to support community-hosted dedicated servers, keeping the game playable indefinitely after its live service ends.

The unsigned Steam post explains that the entire backend is being rebuilt from scratch, touching matchmaking, progression, content unlocks, and stats. Once the migration is complete, players will be able to host their own servers via a dedicated server application and browse community servers directly inside the game. All existing account progress, unlocks, and stats are set to carry over despite the overhaul. On top of that, the update will remove "as many technical barriers to modding as we reasonably can," potentially opening the door to fan-made content keeping the game alive long after official support ends. The post is clear that during this migration, the team has very little bandwidth to act on extra feedback or feature requests.

Deceive Inc. launched to strong reviews as a clever multiplayer game where players disguise themselves as NPCs to complete spy objectives — essentially Hitman meets PvP. Sweet Bandits supported it with seasonal updates for over a year before closing in December 2024, citing an inability to get the game "to a state where it could thrive." At the time, Tripwire Interactive — the publisher behind the Killing Floor series — was named as the party charting the game's future. Servers stayed online but with no clear timeline. A year and a half of silence made the July 16 update a genuine surprise. The move is rare: most shuttered live service games simply go dark, with publishers occasionally releasing server emulator tools at best.

Community reaction has been warm, with players treating the announcement as a best-case outcome for a game that never found a massive audience but built a loyal one. The post closes with a direct statement of intent: "This work is ultimately about one thing: making sure the future of Deceive Inc. is in the hands of the community that continues to play it." No release date for the community server update has been given yet.