"Concord: Brief but Not the Briefest"

Concord's launch was met with a deafening silence, leading to the swift shutdown of its servers. Read on to discover more about the game's closure.

Firewalk Studios’ Freegunners Fail to Fly, Servers to go Offline Two Weeks After Launch

No Hype Leads to Hibernation

Firewalk Studios' 5v5 hero shooter, Concord, is shutting down just two weeks after its launch. Game Director Ryan Ellis announced this decision on Tuesday, September 3rd, via the PlayStation Blog, citing the game's inability to meet expectations.

"While many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize other aspects of the game and our launch didn’t land the way we’d intended," Ellis wrote. "Therefore, at this time, we have decided to take the game offline beginning September 6, 2024."

The statement detailed automatic refunds for all players who purchased the game digitally on Steam, Epic Games Store, and the PlayStation Store, while those with physical copies were directed to follow their retailer's return policy.

It’s evident that Firewalk and Sony had high hopes for Concord. The acquisition of Firewalk Studios by Sony, fueled by confidence in the studio's potential, seemed promising. The positive feedback from both Ellis and Firewalk's studio head, Tony Hsu, along with plans for an episode in the upcoming Prime Video anthology series, Secret Level, and an ambitious post-launch roadmap including a planned first-season launch in October and weekly cutscenes, all pointed to a bright future. However, the game's poor performance forced a significant change of plans. Only three cutscenes were released—two from the game's beta and one just hours before the announcement—and it remains to be seen if gamers will see more of the characters' adventures in the coming weeks.

What Doomed Concord?

Concord’s trajectory was downward from the start. Despite an eight-year development cycle, the game struggled to attract significant player interest. It barely reached a thousand concurrent players, with a peak of just 697. At the time of writing, only 45 players were online. Although these numbers do not account for PlayStation 5 users, they are a far cry from the beta peak of 2,388 players, especially for a Sony-published triple-A title.

Several factors contributed to Concord's anticipated failure. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad noted in a tweet that while the game boasted strong gameplay mechanics and was "content complete," it failed to differentiate itself from existing hero shooters, offering little incentive for players to switch.

"The game itself wasn’t necessarily innovative and the character designs were uninspired," Ahmad wrote. "It didn’t stand out and felt stuck in the OW1 era."

Additionally, its high price point of $40 put it at a significant disadvantage against popular free-to-play competitors like Marvel Rivals, Apex Legends, and Valorant. Combined with minimal marketing, as Daniel Ahmad puts it, "it’s no wonder no one purchased it."

Ryan Ellis, in his statement, indicated that Firewalk Studios will "explore options, including those that will better reach" players. A future return is certainly possible. As seen with the recent revival of the MOBA hero shooter Gigantic, which transitioned from a live-service model to a buy-to-play format six years after its servers shut down, games can indeed make a comeback.

While some suggest making Concord free-to-play, following the example of Square Enix's Foamstars, this superficial change won't address the game's core issues: bland character designs and sluggish gameplay. Many argue that a complete overhaul, similar to the successful redesign of Final Fantasy XIV after its initial missteps, is necessary to revitalize the game.

Game8 gave Concord a 56 out of 100, lamenting that "it’s almost tragic to see eight years of work culminate in such a visually appealing, yet lifeless, game." For more on our thoughts on Concord, you can read our review below!