It’s been one year since Sony pulled the plug on Concord, a multiplayer shooter that was meant to lead the publisher’s vanguard of AAA live service titles. Instead, it became a grim harbinger, attracting so few players at launch that the game was brutally axed with all traces of its existence quickly removed – a cleanup operation that resulted in the shuttering of developer Firewalk Studios and the displacement of many talented workers.
The development budget of Concord has never been confirmed by Sony, with estimates of between 200 and 400 million dollars. Whatever the true figure was, the game’s commercial failure sent shockwaves through the PlayStation business, leading Sony to scrap multiple live service projects on top of the ones it had already cancelled. It’s reported that nearly every major first party studio had been working on a live service series that included flagpole franchises such as God of War, The Last of Us, Spider-Man.
Still, when it was announced that Concord would go offline forever, just two weeks after launch, it came as a surprise to me. I thoroughly enjoyed my short time while reviewing it and was optimistic about the game’s future despite some evident shortcomings. When it comes to live service titles, most endure a somewhat rocky launch period as developers take on board feedback to make improvements while rolling out a roadmap of new content.
So, why did Concord fail so badly? And why was Sony particularly keen to wipe it from existence? There’s a combination of factors, really, starting with the game’s lack of distinction amidst an already saturated market of hero shooters. Overwatch 2 was still relatively popular, alongside Valorant and Apex Legends as well as new and upcoming games like Ubisoft’s XDefiant and Marvel Rivals. The only thing that really set Concord apart was its focus on narrative, promising weekly cinematics that would add depth to the game’s cast of characters and the universe they existed in. It was an interesting concept but one that we never got to see play out.
Speaking of characters, the design of Concord’s playable heroes was a weak point that naysayers immediately latched onto. Considering the game was about a spacefaring team of misfits, akin to Guardians of the Galaxy, many of the designs were disappointingly drab and lacked imagination. Despite a handful of exceptions, many were bland human characters dressed in clumsy outfits. Some of Concord’s unlockable cosmetics promised more exotic hero designs though, again, we never got to see these in full effect.
Pricing was another issue for Sony. This is one area where Concord actually stood out, eschewing the popular free-to-play model that even Overwatch 2 had recently shifted to, in favour of a £34.99 price tag with the promise that all future content (including heroes, maps, and modes) would not be tied to microtransactions. As someone fed up with exploitative microtransactions in free-to-play games, this is something I personally welcomed, knowing that I could make a single upfront payment instead of being regularly stung with each new season or battle pass. Of course, many other gamers didn’t share this view, unwilling to part with £34.99 to see if they liked the game or not.
If Concord had launched a year of two earlier, it may have been an entirely different story. Or, at least, Sony may have given the game more of a chance before marching it off to the gallows. By the time Concord was revealed to the public, after many long months of teasing, there simply wasn’t an appetite for this kind of online shooter. With a development cycle of approximately eight years, Firewalk’s debut game was late to the party, launching at a time when live service fatigue was at an all-time high. The writing was on the wall when Concord’s reveal event failed to excite even the most ardent PlayStation fans, followed by a poor turnout during pre-launch playtests.
With so much time and money having already been poured into the game, Sony made the ill-fated decision to march on without delay. In the days leading up to its launch, there was a definite sense that Concord had been sent out to die with a minimal marketing presence and launch right in the middle of Gamescom. active players and copies sold were always going to be far lower than the publisher’s original forecast, but it felt like Concord would have a long tail and the chance of a comeback story. One that Sony could learn from to strengthen its remaining live service games in the pipeline.
Sadly, we’ll never get to see what Concord could have evolved into if Sony hadn’t been embarrassed into such a kneejerk reaction. Despite some unappealing qualities, the core gameplay was extremely fun and well-polished – Firewalk had actually nailed the part that matters most for an online shooter, but it sadly wasn’t enough.
Although it held out far longer than Concord ever did, we saw a similar story with XDefiant, Ubisoft’s attempted “COD killer” that sewed together elements from a number of the publisher’s hit franchises. It ended up being another strong shooter that simply couldn’t attract enough players to keep the lights on. We also saw this happen with Splitgate… and Splitgate 2. In fact, the only recent success story in this genre has been Marvel Rivals which, despite being hugely derivative, has leveraged the still popular IP to draw in players.
Sony has paid the price for leaning so heavily on live service games as part of its current-gen strategy, which could be to blame for a smaller selection of first party hits compared to this point in the last generation. Now, all eyes turn towards its next big online title, Marathon, which has had problems of its own. There’s a growing fatigue surrounding the already niche extraction shooter, and despite Marathon’s slick reveal trailer and key art (some of which was plagiarised), the hype train has slowed to a crawl following initial playtests with Bungie now going back to the drawing board. Let’s hope the former Halo devs can right the ship instead of hammering another nail in PlayStation’s live service ambitions.
