Following Sony’s surprising decision to pull the plug on live-service shooter Concord two weeks after its release, the game’s director has reportedly resigned and some employees have begun to worry about the studio’s future.
My city announces that Ryan Ellis, serving as Concord’s Director of Game since January 2018, has informed staff that he is stepping down and will take on a support role.
Ellis’ name appeared in a statement posted to the PlayStation Blog announcing that Concord would be shutting down. Ellis said that “while many features of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch did not perform as we intended.”
Concord is one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation history. After years of exorbitant development, the PvP first-person shooter released on August 23 for $40 for PC and PlayStation 5, but it sold an estimated 25,000 games and had a shockingly low peak concurrent player count on Steam (Sony doesn’t make PlayStation player counts public). Sony then pulled Concord from sale just 11 days after launch, issuing refunds in the process.
According to Kotaku , employees at the 150-person Firewalk studio, which Sony acquired in 2023 for an undisclosed sum, are eagerly awaiting their fate. While Ellis suggested that Firewalk will “consider options,” which suggest Concord could return in some form, some employees are reportedly skeptical. Kotaku reports that some have been asked to pitch ideas for recent games, some speculate that they could be brought on board to aid develop Sony’s next game, while others fear mass layoffs or even the studio’s closure.
Sony’s gaming division has already suffered significant cuts in 2024. In February announced round of layoffs affected 900 employees, or about 8% of PlayStation’s global workforce. The layoffs affected multiple PlayStation studios, including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, and Firesprite, but the London-based PlayStation studio was hit the hardest by the closure notice. Sony-owned Bungie has also suffered devastating cuts since then as Destiny 2 struggles to find commercial success.
Although the Concord video game no longer exists, will continue this year as part of Amazon’s Secret Level adult animated anthologyHowever, Sony is facing tough questions about its plans for live services, including Bungie’s Marathon and Haven’s Fairgame$.
Last year, Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki committed to launching just six of its twelve games with live support in development and one based on The Last of Us has already been canceled.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
