In light of a recent stream of back-end Steam updates made to the failed game, many within both the gaming community and industry are beginning to speculate that Sony may be gearing up for some form of Concord comeback.
And perhaps no topic has dominated these conversations more than the question of whether or not Concord can ever truly be revived, or if these updates are the last gasps of something that was better left dead and buried?
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Made by Firewalk Studios, who was acquired by Sony in 2023 specifically in anticipation of their hero shooter becoming an Overwatch-level success, Concord was intended as one of several of Sony’s live service exclusives.
With the weight of PlayStation behind it, expectations were high – but upon release, Concord quickly floundered, with the game’s two beta tests failing to capture either player interest or any significant amount of pre-orders.
It also didn’t help that it was released to an already-crowded market of multiplayer shooters, many of which looked better, played better, and offered unique characters.
The game’s uninspired progressive virtue signaling, particularly with its placing an emphasis on the cast’s pronouns and representation, also felt well and truly out of place.
And little did Firewalk Studios OR Sony know that the game’s early failures would truly foreshadow the game’s eventual implosion.
Eventually going live in September, the game was abruptly pulled from digital stores and shut down completely just two weeks after the fact, with Sony announcing that they would be offering full and total refunds to everyone who forked over their hard earned cash.
However, it looks like Concord is not officially dead just yet.
Since the end of September, the game’s Steam listing has received a number of updates from various accounts titled ‘SonyQAE_Shipping’, ‘PmTest’, and ‘SonyQAE’, all of which have seemingly involved some level of change to its overall build.
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While Sony hasn’t shared anything official regarding the updates, their existence suggests that Concord may be poised for a second attempt at life.
One possible solution to bringing players to the game would be moving it to a free-to-play model. By removing the initial $40 price barrier, Concord could definitely attract a wider audience.
But removing the price tag is only a minor, as the game itself is in need of significant tuning to its gameplay, characters, and overall design to compete with the leading titles in the genre.
The speculation has drawn out thoughts from many industry voices, including Pirat Software, also known by his personal handle of Thor.
An indie game developer and Twitch streamer who has become popular for his gaming insights, when asked for his thoughts on Concord‘s Steam activity, he explained, “You kind of see that a lot. It looks like it’s Q&A-related stuff on the internal. I don’t know if they’d re-release it. What I’m seeing there is that the game was basically just completely rejected by the public, right? It entered a very saturated market and wasn’t doing anything special, and the internet rejected it. It didn’t even do well during the demos, which is the most interesting part. They had documented evidence showing that the game was doing badly in tests and demos. They should have rethought it before launching.”
“It was surprising to me to see that it still went forward in the way that it was,” he added. “That was really surprising, actually.”
Thor’s insights reiterate what many gamers already think, which is that Concord was doomed even before the release because of many issues it had, including the DEI motivations behind the game (in fact, this last factor has led other games to similarly crash and burn, including Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and Unknown 9: Awakening, among man other high-budget titles as players stirred away from those.
And honestly, as Thor’s insights support, gamers have every right to be fed up with such activist-oriented projects, especially as the industry continues to disrespect its core audience by forcing political agendas into spaces meant for escapism and entertainment.
Furthermore, Thor’s words should remind studios that pushing agendas over gameplay is a losing strategy. All those titles failed to deliver and were full of DEI agenda, which has no place in fictional universes.
Ultimately, whether or not Concord actually tries to make a comeback tour currently remains to be seen.
NEXT: Firewalk Studios Dev Reveals Insane ‘Concord’ Dev Time, Says Game Took “Around 8 Years” To Make