Sony shuts down Concord developer Firewalk, permanently cancels game

Concord developer Firewalk Studios has been closed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, according to an internal email from CEO Hermen Hulst. 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 the email to employees 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 said. “We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live-service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”

In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Firewalk Studios wrote that it was “signing off one last time.”

“We took some risks along the way – marrying aspects of card battlers and fighting games with first-person-shooters – and 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,” the studio said. “The talent at Firewalk and the level of individual craft is truly world-class, and teams within Sony Interactive Entertainment and across the industry will be fortunate to work with them. […] Thank you to all the very many teams, partners and fans who supported us along the way.“

In addition to Firewalk Studios, Hulst announced that another Sony-owned studio, Neon Koi, will close. Helsinki-based Neon Koi, which was previously named Savage Games and was acquired by Sony in 2022, 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 on Sept. 6. 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 have been sold. Amid bad press and decreasing player counts, Sony and Firewalk quickly pulled the plug. Concord went offline two weeks after launch. Customers who had purchased the game were refunded.

Before Tuesday’s announcement, Sony and Firewalk’s plans for Concord’s future appeared open-ended, 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. 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.