In my 24 years of covering games, I struggle to think of a more startling failure than Concord, which this week announced it would be going offline to "explore options" that will "better reach our players." At that moment it had been out for just 11 days. Of course, plenty of higher profile games have launched disastrously, and for all sorts of reasons—but what makes Concord unique is how fast it flamed out. Right now, the Steam concurrent data shows that there are just 56 people playing, having peaked at 697 around launch. By any realistic metric Concord was dead on arrival.
What's also remarkable is that Concord presumably had the deep pockets of Sony to draw on, after the publisher acquired Firewalk Studios last April. Although Firewalk is a new developer, it's packed with industry veterans, notably including several who worked in senior gameplay roles at Bungie on Destiny 2. That DNA connection is partly why I've been thinking about Marathon this week, and how shaky its own prospects seem, but there are other similarities too.
