PlayStation will be taking its new Firewalk-developed live services game “Concord” offline this Friday and issuing refunds to players just two weeks after its Aug. 23 launch.
The team-based first-person shooter game is reported to have drawn a historically small audience during its initial availability across PlayStation 5 and PC, with third-party PC-based gaming data website SteamDB showing 30 current in-game players at the time of publication on Tuesday. At the peak in its short history, “Concord” had 697 concurrent players, drastically low for a PlayStation new release, and ranked toward the bottom of PlayStation’s weekly sales charts.
In “Concord,” which has largely been compared to popular mulitplayer shooter “Overwatch,” players assemble a crew of Freegunner space outlaws from the spacecraft Northstar for online games between two teams of five members each. With so few people playing “Concord,” matchup availability became very difficult to come by during gameplay.
“Concord fans — we’ve been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the Northstar,” Firewalk Studios game director Ryan Ellis wrote in a blog post published by PlayStation Tuesday. “Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us. However, while many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended. Therefore, at this time, we have decided to take the game offline beginning Sept. 6, 2024, and explore options, including those that will better reach our players. While we determine the best path ahead, Concord sales will cease immediately and we will begin to offer a full refund for all gamers who have purchased the game for PS5 or PC.”
Per PlayStation, customers who purchased “Concord” from the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Direct will receive a refund to their original payment method, while Steam, Epic Games Store and physical copies will be refunded through those respective digital storefronts and retailers. Once refunded, players will lose access to the game.