When Concord was taken offline just two weeks after launch, that statement suggested it was not a closure but a “restructuring,” with hints that it could emerge in a new form in the future. Here’s part of the statement, issued by director Ryan Ellis a few days before the shutdown:

“Many aspects of the game have been well received by players, but we also know that other aspects of the game and our initial launch have not been received as we had hoped. As a result, we have decided to take the game offline starting September 6, 2024 and explore options, including ones that will better reach our players.”

Ellis has now apparently stepped down from his role as director and the fate of Firewalk and Concord is unknown. The statement says it will launch “first” and “explore options to better reach our players.” The idea was that the game would go dormant and then resurface with some sort of free-to-play relaunch to attract more players.

No, I don’t think that will be the case.

The recent report that Concord cost $400 million over the years may be exaggerated, but even if only a quarter of that is true, it’s essentially a total loss for Sony given what happened at release. It reportedly only grossed around $1 million at launch, and then Sony simply issued refunds and even went so far as to remove review copies of PlayStations that critics once played. This was all completely unprecedented.

The financial issue is one aspect. It costs millions and millions to run a live service game that requires ongoing content. You would think that Sony is pot-commited at this point with that much investment, so maybe they want to at least attempt Free-to-play, but there are limits to that and given that this is one of the biggest failures in the history of computer gaming, I think we’re long past that point.

There’s also no indication that making the game free-to-play would change things. The game had a completely free beta a few weeks before release, which only attracted 2,300 concurrent players on Steam. The $40 price tag may not have been appropriate for the genre, but that wasn’t the main problem.

The main problem was… the game’s existence. The gameplay was actually pretty good and a major overhaul wouldn’t do anything. It felt more like another hero shooter that didn’t stand out, and it launched what was arguably the least aesthetically pleasing roster of hero characters in the history of the genre. It would take millions and tons of development time to, what, remake all of the designs? That’s just not possible, not to mention how heavily the game already relies on mo-cap cinematics. You can’t change the appeal of that roster.

Also, the game is now a meme, set in stone as a failure of the record industry. I feel completely sorry for Firewalk, but less so for PlayStation management who apparently thought this was going to be a huge success for them. But no, there’s no going back from that, free or not.

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