The game has struggled to lure an audience from its open beta forward.
"We are but shadows and dust," as Proximo so sagely put it in Gladiator, and indeed, to the dust shall Concord returneth, far sooner than anyone could have predicted, at that. Concord, effective September 6, 2024, will no longer be playable, and as of this writing all sales of the game have been ceased. Furthermore, Sony will also be offering full refunds to anyone who purchased the game. Sony and Firewalk Studios' new hero shooter launched on August 23, 2024. That's not even two weeks ago, for those keeping track at home, but following a tepid open beta and the abysmal launch of the game where not even 700 concurrent users logged in to play on Steam, it seems that Sony has decided it's not even worth trying to bolster Concord's numbers.
This follows reports alleging that the PlayStation 5 version of Concord might not have even managed to move 30,000 units (with only 15,000 comprising PS5 customers). Sony made the announcement of Concord's end of service via the PlayStation Blog. Here's a bit from the statement:
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. 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 September 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. If you purchased the game for PlayStation 5 from the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Direct, a refund will be issued back to your original payment method.Concord has been heavily criticized for its unappealing character designs, which many found distasteful, pandering, and outright ugly.
Although Sony doesn't touch on this in its statement, the most common and universal complaint about the game from fans has centered on the character designs featured in Concord. Many players found the characters to be pandering, unappealing, and outright ugly. Whether or not this factored into the decision to cancel Concord is unclear, but one would assume it might have at least come up during deliberations to pull the plug on the fledgling game. What is clear above all else is that sales and consumer reaction must have been heinous for Sony to call it a wash so soon after launch.
The blog post also doesn't say if Concord is going away forever. Estimates are that Sony invested somewhere around $200 million into Concord across eight years of development. That's a lot of time and effort, so it's possible Concord might return at some point in one form or another, or perhaps Sony is content with trying to get a tax write off, instead. As we learn more, we'll let you all know.
Source: PlayStation Blog
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