Two weeks. That’s how long Concord, a seemingly high-budget first-party PlayStation game, got to live.
Sony announced on the PlayStation Blog on Tuesday that the team-based first-person shooter would shut down on Sept. 6, just a fortnight after its launch on PS5 and PC. In the blog post, game director Ryan Ellis said parts of the game landed with people — but too much of it didn’t.
“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,” Ellis said.
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As part of this, Concord is no longer for sale and anyone who bought it has been refunded.
If you’ve been following along with Concord‘s story, this outcome is as sad as it was inevitable. First announced back in May, Concord was the result of years of work by Firewalk, a new studio formed by industry veterans. However, from minute one, fan reactions to the reveal were fairly muted — and a beta later in the summer didn’t do much to ratchet up player enthusiasm.
Reviews praised the gunplay when it launched on Aug. 23, but noted the generic art style and the broad outdated-ness of an Overwatch-style game launching in the era of Fortnite. All of that, combined with a $40 price point, led to staggeringly low sales across both PlayStation and PC. And two weeks later, it was all over.
The PlayStation Blog post is vague about what’s next for Concord. The most likely answer is “nothing,” but the post did leave a door open for some kind of return down the line. As always, hopefully nobody loses their job over this.
