Concord's Transient Reign

Concord’s launch was met with crickets and tumbleweeds, leading to a swift shutdown of its servers. Read on to learn more about the game’s closure.

Firewalk Studios’ Freegunners Fail to Fly, Servers to go Offline Two Weeks After LaunchNo Hype Leads to Hibernation

Firewalk Studios’ 5v5 hero shooter Concord is shutting down just two weeks after its launch. Game Director Ryan Ellis announced the 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 then went on to detail 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 clear from the start that Firewalk and Sony wanted to do more with Concord. The acquisition of Firewalk Studios, a move fueled by Sony’s confidence in the studio’s prospects, seemed promising, especially given the positive feedback from both Ellis and Firewalk’s studio head, Tony Hsu. The game was even supposed to get an episode in the upcoming Prime Video anthology series, Secret Level. In addition to this, Ellis outlined an ambitious post-launch plan, including a planned first-season launch in October and weekly cutscenes.

Unfortunately, the game’s poor performance forced a significant change of plans. They were only able to post three cutscenes—two from the game's beta and one released a few hours before the aforementioned announcement—and only time will tell if gamers will be able to see a continuation of the characters’ adventures in the coming weeks.

What Doomed Concord?

Concord’s trajectory was downward from the beginning. Despite an eight-year development cycle, the game struggled to garner significant player interest. In fact, it struggled to reach even a thousand concurrent players, with a peak of just 697. At the time of writing, only 45 players are online. Granted, these numbers do not take into account PlayStation 5 users. Even then, however, compared to its beta peak of 2,388 players, Concord’s current performance is a far cry from what was expected of a Sony-published triple-A title.

Numerous 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 is "content complete," it also 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. Combine this with having little to no 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 engage" players. A future return is certainly within the realm of possibility. As seen with the recent revival of the MOBA hero shooter Gigantic, games can indeed make a resurgence. By transitioning from a live-service model to a buy-to-play format six years after its servers shut down, Gigantic demonstrated that discontinued titles can find new life.

While some suggest making Concord free-to-play, following the recent 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 a complete reimagining, similar to the successful redesign of Final Fantasy XIV after its initial missteps, is necessary to reinvigorate the game.

Game8 gave Concord a 56 out of 100, lamenting that "it’s almost tragic to see 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!