Why Concorde was shut down by PlayStation

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Why Concorde was shut down by PlayStation

After eight years in development, the latest PlayStation exclusive, Concordwas launched on PlayStation 5 and PC on August 23, 2024, and on September 3, 2024, not even a full two weeks later, PlayStation has announced it will shut down the game on September 6, 2024. The writing seemed to be on the wall for Firewalk Studios’ live-action shooter before the game even launched, as it seemed to have a slightly underwhelming player count during its beta, but when it launched, the recorded figures on Steam were surprisingly low, Even when compared to other notable life-service bombs this year, such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

After being announced back in May 2023, players are finally able to get a proper look Concord A few months ago in May 2024 at the PlayStation State of the Game Showcase with a trailer that introduced its group of​​​​ Guardians of the Galaxy – Through a cinematic before showing some gameplay. However, this was too little fanfare despite its visual quality, and soon became clear that Concord Is not going to become as big as some other titles in the genre.

Concorde’s launch “did not land” as intended

The game never reached over 700 players on Steam

A PlayStation Blog Post by the game’s director, Ryan Ellis announced the closure, stating that “While many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch did not land as we intended.“From here, the post says that Firewalk Studios will continue to explore options after the closure, including those that better reach players. While the post did not clearly explain the main reason behind Concord‘s shortcomings and provide a definitive reason for its closure, the closure is not surprising to those who have followed its sales and performance over the past 12 days.

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at its beginning, Concord Couldn’t even reach 700 players on its launch day on Steam, alternating between 550 and 650 players instead. As of the time of writing, following the announcement that it would be closing, SteamDb Shows the game with an all-time peak player count of 697 on PC, which took place during the opening weekend. Sony has yet to release any player count figures for the game on PlayStation 5, so it could have been higher, but clearly not by much if Sony deemed it worth pulling.

From the publication of this notice, Concord Sales have ceased, and full refunds are being offered to everyone who purchased the game for PS5 or PC. For those on PS5 who purchased the game directly from the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Direct, or other digital storefronts, a refund will be issued to players’ original payment method. For PC players, Steam and Epic Games Store will refund those who purchased the game in the coming days. Steam will send a confirmation, while Epic Games Store will contact each customer directly to confirm that the refund has been processed.

Meanwhile, the PlayStation blog post seems to end on an optimistic note, suggesting that Concord won’t stay closed forever, as Firewalk Studios is using this downtime to find a way to improve the title and keep players updated. Whether the title will eventually return or fade into obscurity remains to be seen, but with such a low player count at launch, it was wise to pull it for now and look at exactly what went wrong.

Source: PlayStation Blog, SteamDb

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