It looks like Concord won't be making the comeback I predicted, as Sony announced today that the game will not be brought back, and developer Firewalk Studio is being closed.
"As announced in early September ... certain aspects of Concord were exceptional, but others did not land with enough players, and as a result we took the game offline," Sony Interactive Entertainment studio business group CEO Hermen Hulst said in a PlayStation Studios update. "We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options.
"After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio. I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication."
Hulst said in the message that he is "a big believer in the benefits of embracing creative experimentation and developing new IP," but added that "sustainable financials" are critical, and that's where Concord missed the mark badly. Via SteamDB, it had an all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam of just 660, a number that dropped off quickly over the week after launch.
"The PvP first person shooter genre is a competitive space that’s continuously evolving, and unfortunately, we did not hit our targets with this title," Hulst wrote. "We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area."=
In a final message on X posted shortly after Sony's announcement went live, Firewalk Studios paid tribute to the accomplishments of its "incredible team," and defended Concord as "a great FPS experience ... even if it landed much more narrowly than hoped against a heavily consolidated market."
"We took some risks along the way—marrying aspects of card battlers and fighting games with first-person-shooters—and although some of these and other aspects of the IP didn’t land as we hoped, the idea of putting new things into the world is critical to pushing the medium forward," the studio wrote.
"The talent at Firewalk and the level of individual craft is truly world-class, and teams within Sony Interactive Entertainment and across the industry will be fortunate to work with them. Please reach out to Recruiting at PlayStation for inquiries, and thank you to all the very many teams, partners and fans who supported us along the way."
It's a sad but unsurprising ending to one of the biggest, most infamous flops in videogame history. After more than five years of development and positive early impressions, including from Sony—which liked Concord so much it bought the studio—Concord landed with a thud and flamed out almost immediately. Sony halted sales of the game less than two weeks after it went live, and took it offline completely on September 6.
Ongoing updates to the game on Steam led me to think that a comeback might be in the making, presumably as a free-to-play game—Concord originally released with a $40 price tag, which surely did it no good—but by closing Firewalk and explicitly burying Concord, Sony is leaving no doubt that it wants this whole episode gone and forgotten.
Unrelated to Concord, Sony is simultaneously closing its mobile studio Neon Koi. A Bloomberg report says that between the two closures, about 210 people have been put out of work, although some will find jobs at other Sony studios: Hulst said in his message that "we will work to find placement for some of those impacted within our global community of studios where possible."
