Firewalk Studios new shooter, Concord, launched in a less-than-ideal state for a multiplayer game. The issue wasn’t technical, it wasn’t having major server problems – it just didn’t have enough players.
It failed to hit more than 700 concurrent players on Steam over its launch weekend, and at least on PC never went further than its peak of 697 concurrents.
However today, PlayStation published a blog post announcing that Concord will be taken offline on September 6, 2024, which is this coming Friday at time of writing.
“Concord fans, we’ve been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the Northstar,” began Concord’s game director at Firewalk, Ryan Ellis.
“Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us. However, while many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended. Therefore, at this time, we have decided to take the game offline beginning September 6, 2024, and explore options, including those that will better reach our players.”
Ellis goes on to confirm that refunds will be issued to all players who bought Concord across PS5 and PC, while those who purchased a physical copy of the game at a retail store are advised to return to that retailer for their refund.
To say that this is an unfortunate end for Concord doesn’t even cover it. Firewalk created a very solid shooter, with a business model that hearkened back to the days before free-to-play live service games took over, back when you paid for a game once, and weren’t pestered by constant in-game messages and pop-ups inviting you to spend more money on skins and battle passes.
That Firewalk tried to do something different makes it all the more disheartening to see things go this route. Especially because once it gets taken offline, it’ll likely face even more challenges trying to come back and make a second-first impression.
So far it’s believed that Concord was only able to sell around 25,000 copies globally, across PC and PS5. The cold reality is that it’s likely not enough for PlayStation to keep investing in it.
Perhaps the worst of this is that we may be in for yet another layoff announcement, this time from Firewalk, in the coming months, which would round out this tragic turn of events for Concord and Firewalk Studios.
Concord launched at the end of last month, on August 23, 2024, and it’ll be offline on September 6, 2024, meaning that the game was only live for 15 days total.
Source – [PlayStation Blog]