PlayStation Aiming for Another Concorde Nightmare

Concord had a significant investment from Sony. However, the game collapsed 11 days after its release. Consequently, Sony refunded everyone and took it off the shelves. But there have been rumors that Concord could soon be making a dramatic return as a free-to-play game. Sony's failed hero shooter Concord is said to be coming back since its game files were recently modified on Steam.

Industry experts' opinions on whether Concord might be salvaged by making it free-to-play are mixed, with some thinking it's hopeless in the saturated hero shooter genre. Concorde earlier had trouble finding its niche in the free-to-play market due to the prevalence of successful titles such as Overwatch and Apex Legends. Even with Sony's heavy investment, it would take even more money to bring the game back to life, which is highly unlikely.

With the resignation of the Concorde game director Ryan Ellis, rumors spread that developer Firewalk Studios is about to lay off a large number of employees. The future of Concorde as a free-to-play game on PlayStation and Steam is unclear, although the chances of its coming back are slim. Players were quite clear that Concorde was not what they wanted in any way, shape, or form. Thus, there's hardly any hope for its viability as a free-to-play until significant adjustments are made to it.

Concord's gameplay loop may have had a solid foundation, but it had already passed its prime when it came to appealing to players with its below-average character designs. Even though nobody was expecting overly sexualized character designs like The First Descendant, notably how Nexon revealed Ultimate Freyna, all of the characters in the game hardly had any spark.

Besides, Concorde seems to have arrived somewhat after the deadline. Even though the beta was free, not many people played. Thus, I don't think the free-to-play approach will salvage it anymore. On PC, Concord reached a peak of around 2,000 gamers, which was clearly not a good sign judging by the current hero shooter trend. It's doubtful that Concord will be able to compete with Apex Legends or Overwatch 2.

When Overwatch came out, it was a huge deal since hero shooters were all the rage. It was so successful that it was named Game of the Year, and subsequent titles from other studios likewise enjoyed great success. A major takeaway from Concorde, in my opinion, is that PlayStation should think about the market before the game is ready rather than after it has been released. It's obvious that Sony came somewhat too late into this genre and wanted to try too much of it without considering what's currently going on with the genre. If they had thought about when this game would be finished, they could have probably prevented this failure.

In 2024, though, there seemed to be no way—not with the price tag, and certainly not at this moment—because of the sheer number of these games. When gamers let their feelings known as loudly as they did with Concorde, after everything it has been through and its reputation, regardless of your opinion of the game, we don't see how Sony can revive Concord.

Also, Firewalk Studios was formed with several reputed developers along with veterans of the gaming industry, including Tony Hsu (former Activision executive) and Ryan Ellis (former Bungie creative director), who collaborated on the Destiny franchise, and it would be sad to see them go under without a chance to make amends.

Sadly, this game appears to have been the deciding factor in whether or not Firewalk Studios has a future. I suppose we'll find out where Firewalk Studios goes in future installments or how they salvage the fate of Concord. This might be their chance to do something, or they could get swept up in SIE. To be honest, the second possibility seems more realistic.