In September, PlayStation made the surprising announcement that Concord would be taken offline after less than a month. The initial statement left the door open for the game’s eventual return, but that will not be happening. Today, PlayStation announced the closure of developer Firewalk Studios, and the decision to “permanently sunset the game.” In an internal email from Hermen Hulst, the PlayStation CEO revealed that there were internal discussions about “exploring all our options.” It seems the company did not see a way to make the game profitable, and it will not be coming back.
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“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. We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area,” Hulst writes.
The swift failure of Concord has been a hot topic of conversation over the last month. Despite the shutdown, the game is still slated to appear in an episode of Amazon’s Secret Level animated series. That episode will still be released as planned, even though the game will not be coming back. Secret Level won’t be released until December 10th, at which point Concord will have been offline for nearly three months. In a post on X/Twitter, Firewalk Studios addressed the game’s struggles as well as PlayStation’s decision to close the company. While the reaction to Concord was not what the team had been hoping for, the developer argues that it tried to do something unique and different.
“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 company writes.
RELATED: Serious Questions Must Be Asked About PlayStation CEO Hermen Hulst After New Concord Report
Unfortunately, Firewalk is not the only PlayStation owned studio that was closed today. Hulst also announced the closure of Neon Koi. The developer had been working on an action game for mobile devices, and PlayStation will no longer be moving forward with the project. Hulst says that PlayStation is still early in its mobile efforts, and wants to “concentrate on titles that are in-line with PlayStation Studios’ pedigree and have the potential to reach more players globally.”
Between mobile and live-service games, it seems PlayStation’s recent initiatives have struggled to find financial success. Unfortunately, this has now resulted in more studio closures, in what has already proven to be a difficult time for many in the video game industry. Hopefully those that lost their jobs at Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi will be able to find new places of employment.
Are you disappointed that Concord won’t be coming back? Did you get a chance to play the game before it was shut down? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
