New Concord game update PlayStation has revealed that they will be discontinuing its newest game called Concord after its release on the 23rd August 2024. Developed by Firewalk Studios, the game will be taken offline as officially announced on Friday September 6th 2024. Furthermore, there has been an official release that all those who bought the game would be given their money back, thus bringing to an early close an otherwise promising game.
Playstation Game Concord
Concord was described as a team-based first person shooter and the main of gameplay elements of the title focused space battle between the two teams of five players each. They were portrayed as “Freegunner” space pirates on the Northstar space ship and competed over internet games. In general, the players referred to the game as another Overwatch, a title that popularized team-based and hero-oriented shooter for multiplayer FPS games.
However, these factors did not translate into the necessary player following for Concord. The game came out on both PlayStation 5 and PC – but the latest reports suggested that the game could not draw any buzz. Data of a third-party website dedicated to past and current PC gaming such as SteamDB recorded the game at a meager 697 peak players at the time of its release, a figure that would be considered severely low for any newly released PlayStation game. It was evident that the active player count was declining; by Tuesday, September 3, 2024, the servers had only thirty active players.
Not only that, the player base of Concord was historically low compared to other titles that PlayStation released recently. The game was one of the lowest-selling PlayStation titles in the company’s weekly sales report, thus placing itself as one of the most disappointing game releases lately. This sharp decline in player numbers had huge implications for the matchmaking system because players struggled to join games due to the lack of people.
Firewalk Studios
In response to the game’s underperformance, Firewalk Studios’ game director Ryan Ellis addressed the community through a blog post published on PlayStation’s official website. In the post, Ellis expressed gratitude to those who had supported the game since its launch and acknowledged that the game had failed to meet the expectations of both the players and the developers.
“Concord fans — it has been our pleasure to listen carefully yourself and other players’ opinions since the start of Concord through PlayStation 5 and PC and thankful to each one of you who becomes the Northstar’s crew member,” the writer shared. Your support and the love that this game has gotten from the people has been heartwarming to us, though we understand that some parts of this game and even our launch failed to appeal to the gamers in the way we wanted, wanted the game to appeal to them. Thus, for the meantime, we have decided to pull out the game from the market starting on September 6, 2042, and look for better ways of reaching out.
Ellis was able to point out several reasons that led to the early shut down of the game as would be mentioned later. The game did enjoy some success with its target audience in the form of the communities of dota, Civilization, and SC II – for details you can visit the blog, but the punitive aspects of this plan did not work as expected and led to this unfortunate decision.
Concord PS5 game
When taking the game offline PlayStation on the other hand has agreed to compensate all players who bought Concord by paying them back. This includes those players who downloaded the game from PlayStation Store, PlayStation Direct, steam, epic game store and other players who bought physical copies of the games from various merchants. These refunds will be made through the same mode of payment which was used when making the payment and after being issued with a refund the player cannot be granted access to the game.
“While we map out the next steps, Concord sales will halt as soon as today, and we will start refunding all the gamers who have bought the game for PS5 or PC,” Ellis added. Some of the players have cancelled it citing disappointment on the game’s short life journey while others have expressed understanding and gratitude towards the developers’ transparency efforts.
The refund will be processed automatically to players who purchased Concord from the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Directly. Meanwhile, customers who bought the game via other platforms, such as Steam or Epic Games Store, or those who purchased physical copies, will need to follow the refund policies of those respective storefronts and retailers. The refund process is expected to be straightforward, but it does mean that players will no longer have access to Concord once their refund has been processed.
Concord Game: Challenges in the Competitive FPS Market
The failure of Concord is a sobering reminder of the challenges faced by developers in the highly competitive live-service game market. Despite its promising premise, Concord was unable to carve out a meaningful niche within the crowded FPS genre. Popular titles like Overwatch 2, Valorant, and Call of Duty have dominated the space for years, making it increasingly difficult for new entrants to capture and sustain player attention.
One of the key issues with Concord was its matchmaking difficulties, driven by the low player count. As the player base dwindled, finding matches became increasingly difficult, further compounding the problem. For a live-service game that relies on active multiplayer participation, this was a fatal flaw. Without a steady stream of players, the game’s core experience — team-based competitive play — simply could not function as intended.
Moreover, marketing and promotion for the title remained modest when compared to ‘flagship’ PlayStation products. This may have hindered the game’s outreach marketing strategy at its onset and made it difficult to capture a wider market. Unfortunately, due to poor marketing and the failure to gain a foothold in the emergent live-service market, Concord remained unknown.
What’s Next for Firewalk Studios?
However, as Firewalk Studios and PlayStation plan their next move, there are concerns about the future of Concord. In his blog post, Ellis suggested that the developers may even look for some other ways to support their players more effectively. This may demand redesigning the game, creating new content, or transitioning to a different business model that could sell better in the market.
Of course, it remains unclear what direction Concord’s future would have taken, but the game’s immediate shutdown raises questions about the viability of live-service games and their potential for sustainable development. Currently, the main goal is to compensate the players who encountered certain issues and to study the experience of the first few weeks of Concord’s functioning.
The lessons learnt in the future will help PlayStation change its strategy for expansion and approach to new titles in the live-service segment. It is not all lost for Firewalk Studios to try to make this vision work; there may yet be a middle ground for communication to happen in order to appease both the studio and the players.
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