Everyone who purchased the team shooter for the PlayStation 5 or the personal computer will receive a refund from Sony.
The new team shooter Concord from Sony is not going to be playable for a significant amount of time yet. Firewalk Studios, the game’s developer, has announced that it will take the game down on September 6, just two weeks after it was released, in order to “explore options, including those that will better reach our players.”
It is no longer possible to purchase Concord in digital format, and Sony has decided to issue a refund to all customers who purchased the $40 game on the PlayStation 5, Steam, or Epic Games Store. Those who purchased a physical copy must return it to the location where it was purchased in order to receive a refund of their money.
“We also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended,” game director Ryan Ellis said on the PlayStation Blog. “While many aspects of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game’s launch didn’t land the way we’d intended.”
All indicators suggested that Concord was a failure right from the start, despite the fact that Sony has not published official sales data. The game was released to reviews that were mediocre. There were never more than 700 players playing the game at the same time on Steam once the game was officially released, which is a terrible result for a game that has a rather high notoriety. According to the estimates of some analysts, it only sold 25,000 copies between Steam and PS5 in its first six days of release, which is not even close to being sufficient to make it a viable live-service game product.
It is extremely unusual for a big publisher to take a game offline not long after it has been released to the public. The one that comes to mind the most recently is Amazon’s Crucible, which was released in the year 2020.
Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Sony’s own Destiny 2 are just some of the free-to-play team shooters that compete with Concord. Concord’s gameplay is above average, and it does not have any characters that are particularly compelling. Additionally, Concord faces intense competition from other free-to-play team shooters. It is possible that Firewalk, which Sony acquired the previous year, may attempt to rework Concord as a free-to-play game; but, given the current state of affairs, this would be nothing short of a massive failure for Sony.