Sony pulls Concord from sale just two weeks after its disastrous launch, offering refunds to all players

Wow, that was fast!

What happened?

• Firewalk Studios game director Ryan Ellis announced in a post on the PlayStation Blog that Concord will be going offline on September 6, just two weeks after its global launch.
• The game has been already taken from sale on the PS Store, Epic Games Store, and Steam. “Concord is no longer available on the Steam store,” the notice reads, while the EGS page says that “this content is currently unavailable in your platform or region.”
• All players who purchased Concord will be offered full refunds, including those who bought physical copies from retailers.

• “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,” Ellis wrote, adding that the team will “explore options, including those that will better reach our players.”
• It is unclear from this wording whether Concord will completely fade into oblivion or will be relaunched in some shape or form (e.g. as a free-to-play project) in the future.

Concord’s disastrous launch

• Released on August 23, Concord had a lackluster launch in terms of player numbers. The game reached a maximum of 697 concurrent users on Steam, with its 24-hour peaks soon dropping to just over 100 CCU. These are disastrous results for project with a AAA budget and live service ambitions.
• The game currently has a “Mixed” rating on Steam, with 68% of the 756 user reviews being positive.

• While Sony hasn’t disclosed any stats for Concord, GameDiscoverCo’s Simon Carless estimated the game’s sales at just 25k units, with PlayStation 5 accounting for 60% of the total.
• Circana’s Mat Piscatella added that Concord “ranked 147th in US PS5 daily active players across all titles, with fewer than 0.2% of Monday’s active PS5 players playing the game.”

Firewalk Studios is part of Sony’s live service ambitions

PlayStation partnered with Firewalk Studios in 2021 to publish the studio’s then-unannounced AAA multiplayer game. The Japanese company fully acquired the team last year to accelerate the growth of its live service operations.

It is worth noting that Firewalk was established in 2018 as part of the ProbablyMonsters collective, which specializes in incubating AAA studios. Led by former Bungie president Harold Ryan, ProbablyMonsters also raised $200 million in September 2021 to finance multiple games in development by its in-house teams (including Firewalk).

It is unclear how much money Sony has invested in Concord since acquiring the team, but rumors suggest the game’s budget was around $100 million (note: there’s no confirmation from any reliable source). So only time will tell how much of a loss the game will cause the company.

The Firewalk Studios deal was part of a strategy initiated by now former Sony Interactive Entertainment head Jim Ryan. It all started with the Bungie acquisition in 2022, with PlayStation saying it will use the studio’s expertise to build its own portfolio of live service games.

Ryan called this area an “untapped opportunity” for the company, which planned to launch multiple GaaS projects by March 2026. In addition to Concord, this pipeline included multiplayer games based on Sony’s franchises like The Last of Us (already canceled) and Horizon, as well as original IPs like Haven Studios’ Farigame$.

It is unclear whether Sony will adjust its strategy following Concord’s flop. The company’s only success in this field so far is Helldivers 2, a co-op shooter made by third-party studio Arowhead. Despite its current state and declining player interest, the game was a huge commercial success, selling over 12 million copies across PS5 and PC in just 12 weeks.