Sony will shut down Firewalk Studios, the developer of the now-offline Concord hero shooter, which may have been preparing for a free-to-play relaunch. That won't happen anymore. Firewalk will disband, although the breakdown by layoffs and who might move elsewhere within Sony is still unclear. Here's what Hermen Hulst said in a message to employees (via The Verge):

“We have spent a lot of time over the last few months reviewing all of our options,” Hulst said. “After much consideration, we have come to the conclusion that the best path forward is to permanently discontinue the game and close the studio. I would like to thank everyone at Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”

The release of Concord will remain one of the biggest video game disasters of all time, a title that took years and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and was canceled just two weeks after release due to a pathetically low player count.

While the game's closure shortly after release seemed to leave at least some scope for a possible reboot in the future, likely free-to-play to remove the $40 barrier to entry if you had been paying attention to development during that time It was pretty clear during the game that there was no point. The price may have been unfavorable, but the free beta attracted barely 2,000 players on Steam shortly before launch. Upon release, it peaked at under 700, while fellow mega-disaster game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League had 13,000. Sales estimates were only 25,000 copies, and Sony then had to refund them in full.

In short, price wasn't the issue, and it seemed unlikely that a free relaunch or gameplay tweaks could save the game. Certainly there are many “redemption” stories in the gaming industry, but if you imagine something like a turnaround in Cyberpunk 2077, as problematic as it was, it still launched with a million concurrent players on Steam. You need something to build on, and Concord had nothing.

The year 2024 has proven to be a series of wild swings for Sony: the “Helldivers 2” live stream was a surprisingly huge success, while “Concord” was a historic disaster. Yesterday, Bungie released a video about its own live game it will be developing for Sony, Marathon, suggesting that it may be different from its planned 2025 release year.

Firewalk had a lot of talent and I really hope Sony can find positions for them elsewhere in the company rather than simply issuing a mass layoff. There are lots of live service projects there. Concord simply hasn't come together on any level, and as Herman Hulst says, there are many lessons to be learned.

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