Sony shuts down Concord developer Firewalk and officially cancels the game

Concord developer Firewalk Studios has been shut down by Sony Interactive Entertainment, according to a internal email from managing director Hermen Hulst. The failed shooter has become permanently sunset, Hulst confirmed, and will not return.

“After much consideration, we have decided that the best way forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio,” Hulst said in the email to employees on Tuesday. “I want to thank everyone at Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”

Hulst explained that after taking Concord offline in September, SIE “spent a lot of time over the last few months exploring all of our options” for the shooter. “The PvP first-person shooter genre is a competitive field that is constantly evolving, and unfortunately we fell short of our goals with this title,” he said. “We will take away the lessons learned Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”

In a statement regarding X (formerly Twitter), Firewalk Studios wrote that it is “signing off one last time.”

“We took some risks along the way – marrying aspects of card fighters and fighting games with first-person shooters – and while some of these and other aspects of the IP didn’t land as we hoped, the idea was to put new things into the world is critical to pushing the medium forward,” the studio said. (…) Thanks to all the many teams, partners and fans who supported us along the way.”

In addition to Firewalk Studios, Hulst announced that another Sony-owned studio, Neon Koi, will close. Helsinki-based Neon Koi, formerly known as Savage Games, was bought by Sony in 2022was developing a mobile action game for the PlayStation.

Concord was originally released in late August for PlayStation 5 and Windows PC, then pulled from sale and taken offline on September 6. At that time, Concord game director Ryan Ellis said the studio planned to “explore options, including those that will better reach our players” while it “determine(d) the best path forward” for the game.

Concord garnered headlines for its low number of players on Steam at launch. According to a report by IGN, analysts estimated that opening week sales were uncharacteristically poor for a first-party game published by Sony – only around 25,000 copies of Concord was considered sold. Amid bad press and declining player numbers, Sony and Firewalk quickly pulled the plug. Concord went offline two weeks after launch. Customers who had purchased the game were refunded.

Before Tuesday’s announcement, Sony and Firewalk’s plans for Concord‘s future seemed open, leading to speculation that the game could be re-released as a free-to-play game – Concord cost $39.99 – or as part of Sony’s PlayStation Plus subscription.

Firewalk Studios was founded in 2018 as part of the ProbablyMonsters game studio collective founded by Harold Ryan. Sony and ProbablyMonsters announced a publishing deal for Firewalk’s debut game in 2021. In April 2023, Sony announced that they planned to acquire Firewalk from ProbablyMonsters.