A fitting end to the saga of 2024’s biggest commercial bomb: Sony has confirmed the shutdown of Firewalk Studios, the developers behind the live-service shooter Concord, officially transitioning them to “was/were.”
Concord hit the market with a resounding flop, turning heads for all the wrong reasons. Universally panned from the start, the game’s character designs were slammed for being bland, uninspired, and downright repulsive, pushing potential players away from the $40 hero shooter, if that price tag didn’t already do the job.
Despite Sony’s high hopes and an eight-year development stretch, Concord missed the mark entirely, with visuals that baffled consumers, characters labeled with gender pronouns, and at least one openly transgender woman character in the roster.
As expected, the usual suspects, video game journalists who double as PR mouthpieces rushed to defend Concord, urging gamers to give the “progressive” and painfully ugly $40 hero shooter a “chance” while other Sony owned studios borrowed some of their own credibility to promote this train wreck.
Despite their relentless support and Sony’s hefty marketing campaign for Concord, it peaked at just 697 players on PC and less than two weeks later, Sony pulled the plug, refunding all buyers and shutting down its online services.
After the fallout, Concord’s alleged budget came to light via Colin Moriarty, formerly of IGN, who revealed that development costs reportedly hit $400 million, with Sony shouldering at least $200 million in losses after acquiring Firewalk Studios in 2023.
Sony Interactive Entertainment co-CEO Hermen Hulst allegedly saw Concord as a potential mega-franchise, despite it having no offline mode, no campaign, and relying on weekly cinematic cutscenes to expand the lore of its pronoun-filled character lineup.
Sony even rolled out Concord-themed PlayStation 5 controllers, seemingly validating Hulst’s belief that Concord could rival the cultural power of Star Wars. Reports from within Firewalk, however, pointed to a “toxic positivity” culture, where criticism was swept aside, fostering an environment of executive nepotism that ultimately crashed and burned.
This monumental flop may just overshadow other industry failures, like Volition’s Saints Row reboot and Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Now, months after Concord’s abrupt end and refunds for the few who actually purchased it, Sony has dissolved Firewalk Studios.
A full internal email from Sony Interactive Entertainment’s CEO Hermen Hulst was posted on their blog, addressing the closure of Firewalk Studios and confirming Concord’s permanent shutdown, without any apology mind you. Hulst announced not only Firewalk’s closure but also the end of Neon Koi and their mobile action game project.
In his statement on Concord, Hulst noted, “Certain aspects of Concord were exceptional, but others did not land with enough players. We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options.”
One of those options seemed to involve re-releasing Concord as a free-to-play game, hinted by SteamDB updates to its data files despite its initial termination. However, before a second flop could occur, Sony ultimately chose to shut down Firewalk, a studio they acquired in April 2023 solely for Concord.
Their one and only release from Firewalk will go down as one of gaming’s biggest commercial failures.
Hulst also acknowledged the uncertain future for affected staff, stating, “Neon Koi and Firewalk were home to many talented individuals, and we will work to find placement for some of those impacted within our global community of studios where possible.”
Yet, he omitted any reference to the freelancer controversy, where one contributor to Concord openly insulted gamers, calling them “talentless freaks.”
The increasing reliance on freelancers and third-party firms in game development often drives budgets to balloon, especially when publishers like Sony back projects they believe could represent the future of their brand, sparing no expense to meet the demands of Firewalk Studios.
For a relatively small studio like Firewalk Studios, it’s perplexing that the game’s credits stretch over an hour, highlighting a significant issue in modern AAA game design: the heavy reliance on outsourcing to meet deadlines.
Despite nearly seven years in development, Concord launched as a purely multiplayer-focused title, completely lacking a single-player mode, and relied on weekly vignette animations to expand its lore, animations that certainly weren’t cheap to produce and were actually praised by the very few critics who could stomach the horrid character designs which more or less cemented its demise.
Many gamers will celebrate the demise of Firewalk Studios, as Concord stands as a stark reminder of how far the PlayStation brand has fallen since Sony Interactive Entertainment abandoned its roots in Japan.
After relocating their headquarters to California in 2016, Sony has seemingly waged a campaign against Japanese developers, fanservice and femininity while promoting and protecting LGBTQ+ products under the guise of inclusive content for global audiences.
While the number of staff Sony plans to relocate or hire internally hasn’t been disclosed, it’s safe to assume that it will be minimal at best. I’d suggest pouring one out for they/them, but it would be a waste of fine alcohol to celebrate the official demise of Concord for a second time.
As Firewalk Studios becomes another casualty in the gaming industry, it highlights a trend: the infiltration of feminist developers obsessed with pushing identity politics and radical ideologies to further their agendas. Backed by financial giants like BlackRock and the Vanguard Group, which seem to disdain the portrayal of attractive, curvy women in games, these studios have prioritized an artificial push for queer identity and racial inclusivity and are paying the price dearly.
The result? A slew of visual abominations that fail to resonate with gamers.
Consumers, meanwhile, are doing a commendable job of doing nothing, rejecting these products. With recent economic challenges, they can no longer afford to waste time, money, and effort on games that don’t meet their expectations. The critical need to spend wisely has never been more apparent.
Despite the media’s attempts to vilify consumers as racist bigots for refusing to buy what they deem propaganda disguised as video games, these absurd and woke travesties continue to pile up, signaling a crash for the gaming industry which looms overhead.
Even major players like Sony and Microsoft can’t escape the consequences of investing hundreds of millions in these reprehensible agendas, aiming to cater to an audience that, quite frankly, doesn’t even exist. As the market shifts, it’s clear that gamers are tired of being force-fed ideologies over entertainment, leading to a reckoning that could reshape the industry landscape in the near future.
Sony is poised to bleed even more money following the failure of Concord, which has hit them hard, especially in light of their recent push to maximize profits from the PlayStation 5 Pro. This new console continues to use the outdated and underwhelming Zen 2 CPU, with an all-digital package and a separate disc drive sold at a staggering $700 price tag.
Unlike the PS4 Pro, which saw a price drop, the PS5 Pro does nothing to alleviate the original PS5’s rising cost.
In a questionable move, Sony also delisted Horizon Zero Dawn, forcing gamers to shell out full price for its unnecessary remaster. This tactic seems aimed at recouping the countless millions lost due to Concord’s failure.
But the woes don’t end there; Sony has more online-only, “woke” live-service titles in the pipeline. Among them is Bungie’s Marathon remake, featuring sexually ambitious ugly robots in a PVPVE extraction shooter format. There’s also Fairgame$, a PVP heist game that centers around the theme of “eating the rich” and combatting capitalism, complete with the usual assortment of inclusive and unconventional character designs that have become the norm in modern gaming.
Like Concord, both Marathon and Fairgame$ will lack a single-player campaign and will be strictly online. Despite their questionable appeal, Sony is likely to price these titles at $40, setting them up to face the same grim fate as Concord.
As the company continues down this path, it remains to be seen how much longer they can sustain this approach before the financial repercussions become even more severe.
