Concord’s game director reportedly resigns as Firewalk developers fear layoffs or possible closure
According to a report from Kotaku, Concord game director Ryan Ellis has resigned from his position at Firewalk Studios and will instead take on a “supporting role.”
Three sources told the site that Ellis, a former Destiny 2 director who left Bungie in 2016 and founded Firewalk in 2018, announced his resignation last week, shortly after Sony took the game offline to “explore options” to “better reach our players.” The move came less than two weeks after Concord faced near-total disinterest and hit an all-time high of just 697 concurrent players on Steam.
“Ryan believed deeply in this project and in bringing players together through the joy of it,” a former developer told Kotaku. “Even though there were things during development that could have been done differently… he’s a good person and has a big heart.”
Concord’s spectacular fall was shocking not only because of its speed, but because Sony had so much faith in the game that it signed a publishing deal for it in 2021 and bought Firewalk outright in 2023, before Concord was even announced, let alone released. While the $40 price tag is widely cited as one of the main reasons for Concord’s failure, it also just wasn’t a truly great game: “An unpolished, overpriced, and outdated hero shooter,” we said in our 45% review, “it’s fine in a market where ‘good’ isn’t enough and hasn’t been enough for years.”
While there is speculation that Concord could return, possibly as a free-to-play game, Firewalk staff are reportedly pessimistic, and some have been asked to consider proposals for entirely new projects that are completely unrelated to Concord. Of course, there are also concerns about mass layoffs and potentially a complete closure of the studio.
This wouldn’t be unprecedented: Sony-owned Bungie recently laid off 220 employees in the name of “portfolio optimization,” and since Firewalk is a studio focused only on games, it seems particularly vulnerable to cuts or a shutdown. I’ve reached out to Sony for comment and will report back if I hear back.