Sony's big-budget PlayStation 5 hero shooter State of Play showcase in May, Concord was straining to be the next live-service hit. The response was far from enthusiastic, however, and in the months following the State of Play, the road to release started to look more and more like a death march.
It doesn't take any particular astute insight to clock that Concord was conceived somewhere in the wake of the original Overwatch release. A $40 price point and the lack of any immediately obvious twist on the formula are products of a world where a polished hero shooter is inherently destined for success. In 2024, that's not a world that exists anymore. Toss in familiar character designs and snarky writing that feel all too beholden to the Guardians of the Galaxy films, and it's hard to see where Concord's own identity even comes into the picture.
Concord Never Had A Shot At Building A Playerbase
Decent Fun Without Enough Of A Hook
A big problem with Concord is that it didn't have much of a target audience, but if there was one, I'd consider myself about as close to it as you can get. I'm almost as trapped in the original Overwatch era as Concord is, with a lingering fondness for the game that kept me coming back until Overwatch 2 took its place. When it comes to free-to-play live-service games, I can never find anything that I love, and I'm severely allergic to aggressive battle es and the long lists of daily tasks theoretically intended to hook players in.
Concord's removal from the market was announced on the official PlayStation Blog, which clarified that refunds will be offered and implied that the game could eventually return to the market after developer Firewalk Studios explores options to reach a larger playerbase.
Even I wasn't that excited about Concord, though, which shows just how weak the game's hook was. More than delivering features that excited me, it just avoided things that I would have disliked, whether that's free-to-play monetization or the general desperation to overstimulate that colors a lot of online games. I didn't play Concord for Screen Rant's review because it looked like a great game, but because it didn't look like a bad one, and that's no way to sell a $40 live-service title.
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Hero shooters also tend to be much more fun with friends, which turned Concord's uphill battle into a truly Sisyphean task. Most of my friends either hadn't heard of the game or had forgotten about it since the State of Play, and none found it particularly appealing. Even people interested in the game aren't likely to buy it if they can't get friends on board, and the likelihood of it going free-to-play or being delisted made a purchase seem like an inherent risk.
PlayStation's Priorities Haven't Been In The Right Place
The PS5 Doesn't Have Sony's Best Exclusive Library
At a certain point, you have to ask how Sony let a game so obviously doomed launch without re-examining things, and that question points to a larger problem with the current operations of PlayStation Studios. The PS5 has a huge share of the market, but it feels like a position ed along by the success of the PS4 more than something earned on the virtue of its game library. Although some strong exclusives like Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (for now, at least) serve as draws, it's a slime lineup compared to past generations.
Concord's production value and extended development cycle is an example of Sony putting some effort into expanding that library, but it's also proof that PlayStation doesn't have a clear idea of what to invest in. System sellers like God of War, The Last of Us, and Uncharted channel high production values into compelling single-player experiences, and although they don't continually generate money through cosmetics, they do move copies of both systems and games. Other ambitious past efforts like Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls showcase an ambition to make games that could easily be talked about as art.
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When live-service titles miss, they miss hard, and Concord points to the difficulty of investing a huge development effort into chasing a trend. The Last of Us might have been a bit late to the zombie craze, but it made choices that set itself apart from competitors.
The live-service market moves especially fast, and the things that find success tend to either be quick on their feet, like Fortnite, or uninterested in capitalizing on any particular trend to begin with, like Sony's notable live-service success with Helldivers 2. Even Helldivers 2 almost torpedoed its success when Sony mandated a PSN well after the game's launch, and the game isn't available in many global regions even after the decision was reversed.
The Future Of PlayStation Needs To Look Very Different
Live-Service Games Shouldn't Be The Focus
Sony's already given up on a lot of live-service efforts, from The Last of Us Online to a Twisted Metal project that was a poorly kept secret. Others still on the horizon, like the Marathon reboot that seems likely to recapture nothing of what fans liked about Marathon in the first place, might be in trouble after recent layoffs at Bungie. Concord actually made it to the finish line in decent shape and still couldn't land an audience, and it's hard for me to look at the big picture and not wish PlayStation was putting this money elsewhere.
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I'm not in love with every blockbuster PlayStation single-player game — Marvel's Spider-Man, for example, never really did it for me — but I do firmly believe that Sony needs to why people like PlayStation exclusives. Astro Bot, which comes out on the same day that Concord dies, feels a lot more like the fun experiments that started disappearing during the PS4's lifespan. I'd love to see a balance between heavy hitters and titles like Astro Bot, making it so that people who have a PS5 alongside another console or a PC have more games to look forward to.
Concord's gameplay was perfectly enjoyable, and I might have really liked it if the overall package was more dynamic and appealing. The product that launched, however, could hardly have been more unfit for the current market. Years after the launch of the PlayStation 5, Sony has spent way too much time and money developing games that no one really wants, and Concord's failure proves more emphatically than ever that change is necessary.
Source: PlayStation Blog
Firewalk Studios presents Concord, a first-person multiplayer sci-fi shared-world shooter. The game was announced during the May 2023 PlayStation Showcase, with little details divulged on the product. The game is expected to make its debut sometime in 2024.
- Developer(s)
- Firewalk Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS5
