In a significant move, Sony has announced the closure of Firewalk Studios, the developer behind the hero-shooter Concord, which was taken offline just weeks after its troubled launch. The announcement made on Tuesday confirms that Firewalk’s employees will exit Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). The gaming giant has decided to “permanently sunset” Concord, acknowledging that the title did not meet its performance expectations. Alongside Firewalk Studios, Sony has also revealed it will shut down mobile game developer Neon Koi.
Closure of Firewalk Studios
The closure of Firewalk marks an unfortunate episode for Sony, whose attempt to capture the multiplayer hero-shooter market with Concord failed to resonate with gamers. Officially released on August 23, the $40 game struggled to attract players in a genre saturated with free-to-play offerings, peaking at a low of 697 concurrent users on Steam before being removed from both PlayStation and PC stores just 13 days after its debut.
In an internal email to staff, Hermen Hulst, CEO of SIE’s Studio Business Group, elaborated on the difficult decision-making process leading to the studio’s closure. “We have spent considerable time exploring all our options,” he stated. “After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio.”
Despite some promising elements in Concord, Hulst noted that not enough players were engaged with the game. “The PvP first-person shooter genre is a competitive space that’s continuously evolving, and unfortunately, we did not hit our targets with this title. We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to enhance our live service capabilities moving forward,” he said.
Firewalk Studios bid farewell via a post on X (formerly Twitter), praising its development team as “truly world-class.” The studio reflected on the creative risks taken during development, stating, “We took some risks along the way – marrying aspects of card battlers and fighting games with first-person shooters. Although some of these and other aspects of the IP didn’t land as we hoped, the idea of putting new things into the world is critical to pushing the medium forward.”
Firewalk is signing off one last time.
Firewalk began with the idea of bringing the joy of multiplayer to a larger audience. Along the way we assembled an incredible team who were able to:
– Navigate growing a new startup into a team during a global pandemic: Firewalk was…— Firewalk (@FirewalkStudios) October 29, 2024
Sony further stated that the decision to close both Firewalk and Neon Koi was not made lightly but deemed necessary to strengthen the organization. The company also expressed its commitment to assisting laid-off employees from both studios by potentially placing them within its broader portfolio of game studios.
Concord’s Downfall
Established in 2018 as part of ProbablyMonsters and led by former Bungie employees, Firewalk Studios was acquired by Sony in April 2023. The company reportedly invested over $200 million into the development of Concord, which was intended to bolster its live-service strategy. However, insiders indicated that the overall costs for the game reached an estimated $400 million, marking an unprecedented financial setback for Sony.
Concord was positioned as a retro-futuristic hero-shooter, drawing comparisons to the style and humor of Guardians of the Galaxy. Initially priced at $40, the game faced immediate challenges, selling approximately 10,000 units on Steam and around 15,000 on the PlayStation Store. Its launch was poorly received, leading to minimal concurrent player counts that prompted Sony to take the game offline on September 6 and issue refunds to all purchasers. In the wake of this decision, there were speculations regarding Concord’s potential relaunch in an altered format, possibly as a free-to-play title or through Sony’s PlayStation Plus service.
A review of Concord described it as a “serviceable first-person hero-shooter, very much in the vein of Overwatch,” but ultimately noted that it lacked unique features to stand out in a saturated market.
