Sony officially cancels Concord & shuts down developer Firewalk Studios

Sony bought out Firewalk Studios in hopes that Concord could be the next big thing for the studio, but the game shut down after less than two weeks. Now, after almost 2 months of silence, they’ve shuttered the studio in an attempt to recoup their losses.

It isn’t clear just how much money Concord lost Sony, but it sure didn’t make them anything considering all purchases for the game were refunded when servers shut down. Reports range from Concord costing them anywhere between $200 million to $400 million dollars to make.

And, rather than trying to rebuild Concord or make a new game with the same studio of talent, they’ve chosen to shut down Firewalk Studios entirely a year and a half after acquiring them.

“Certain aspects of Concord were exceptional, but others did not land with enough players, and as a result we took the game offline. We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options,” as explained in an internal email from Herman Hulst, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment Business Studios.

Firewalk Studios

“After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio.   I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”

Hulst confirmed that Concord is dead and that the game won’t be returning in any way despite speculation that it’d be coming back. They’ve essentially decided to cut their losses and move on.

He also claimed that Sony is going to double down on their live service approach despite their lack of success in that market.

“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. We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area,” he said.

However, this email didn’t contain any news on whether or not their episode in Secret Levels was going to be canceled, meaning that, as of now, we’ll be seeing it one last time in the Amazon show.

Firewalk Studios also said that they’d be signing off “one last time” and left a message to those who played the game, saying that they’re proud of what they accomplished despite how things ended.