Firewalk Studios’ hero shooter Concord, which launched on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC on Aug. 23, will be pulled from sale on Tuesday and taken offline later this week in the wake of its disastrous launch, Sony announced on its PlayStation blog. Players who purchased Concord will be refunded, the studio said, as it “explore[s] options” for the game, and “determine[s] the best path ahead.”
Ryan Ellis, game director at Firewalk Studios, announced Concord’s fate in a message to players, writing that “aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended.”
“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,” Ellis wrote. “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.”
Refunds will be issued to the original payment methods for players on PS5, whether the game was purchased in the PlayStation Store or via PlayStation Direct, as well as players who bought the game on PC.
Sony and Firewalk launched Concord to tepid response last month; the game drew unfavorable coverage for its shockingly low concurrent player numbers on Steam, where less than 700 people were playing the game during launch weekend. Those numbers fell further in the weeks after launch, according to SteamDB. On Tuesday, about 30 people were playing Concord simultaneously, a dire indicator of the game’s health. A recent report from IGN said that an estimate of 25,000 copies of the game have been sold since launch.
The game’s poor reception was signaled well before launch, however. Concord’s dual multiplayer beta tests were also sparsely populated, and there was a downturn in players from one beta weekend to the next.
Concord received mixed reviews from critics who lamented the game’s lack of standout features, its $40 price tag in a sea of free-to-play competitors, and its bland cast of characters. Concord let players take control of 16 Freegunners — a diverse group of aliens, robots, and space mercenaries — each with their own special abilities, in 5v5 multiplayer matches. The game was the debut title from Firewalk, which was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2023.
Sony and Firewalk’s decision to pull Concord is surprising and unusual, but not unprecedented. Sony pulled CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store in 2020 over quality issues with the game, which returned to sale about six months later. Multiversus developer Player First Games also pulled its platform fighter from sale for about a year as it retooled the game.
One option for Concord is for Sony and Firewalk to retool the game to be free to play, or as an ongoing PlayStation Plus catalog title. Concord was not built with free-to-play mechanics in mind, though. The game did not feature a battle pass or other microtransactions at launch, and instead promised free updates to those who purchased the game.