Concord developer Firewalk Studios has been closed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, according to an internal email from CEO Hermen Hulst to employees. The failed shooter has been permanently sunset, Hulst confirmed, and will not return.
“After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio,” Hulst said in an email on Tuesday. “I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”
Hulst explained that after taking Concord offline in September, SIE “spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options” for the shooter. “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,” he explained. “We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live-service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”
In addition to Firewalk Studios, Hulst announced that another Sony-owned studio, Neon Koi, will close. Helsinki-based Neon Koi was developing a mobile action game for PlayStation.
Concord was originally released in late August for PlayStation 5 and Windows PC, then pulled from sale and taken offline two weeks later. At the time, Concord game director Ryan Ellis said that the studio planned to “explore options, including those that will better reach our players,” while it “determine[d] the best path ahead” for the game.
Concord garnered headlines for its low player count on Steam at launch. According to a report from IGN, analysts estimated that opening week sales were uncharacteristically poor for a first-party game published by Sony — only about 25,000 copies of Concord were estimated to be sold. Amid bad press and decreasing player counts, Sony and Firewalk quickly pulled the plug. Concord went offline on Sept. 6, and customers who purchased the game were refunded.
Sony and Firewalk were open-ended about their plans for Concord’s future, 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, who previously served as CEO and president of Destiny developer Bungie. Sony and ProbablyMonsters announced a publishing deal for Firewalk’s debut game in 2021. In April 2023, Sony announced it planned to acquire Firewalk from ProbablyMonsters.
