PlayStation hero shooter Concord will be taken offline on September 6, 2024 and all players will receive a full refund, Sony announced today.
In an announcement on the PlayStation blog, director Ryan Ellis said: “While many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also have to acknowledge that other aspects of the game and our initial launch did not pan out as we intended.”
Concord will therefore be taken offline so that Sony and developer Firewalk Studios can “explore options, including ones that will better reach our players.”
The game will be removed from sale immediately and anyone who purchased it from PlayStation Store or PlayStation Direct will receive a refund via their original payment method. Those who purchased it through Steam and the Epic Games Store will receive a refund in the next few days.
Refunds for physical games are a little trickier, but players can check with individual retailers to get a refund. Sony will likely organize a system with them themselves that will allow all refunds to be fully processed. “Once refunded, players will no longer have access to the game,” Sony clarified.
Concord was withdrawn less than two weeks after launch
Concord was released on August 23, 2024, meaning it was taken off sale just 11 days after release and taken offline for all players just two weeks later. Even those who purchased Concord will not be able to play after September 6.
Its launch was nothing short of disastrous, with analysts telling IGN that it probably sold just 25,000 units. On Steam, the game had a tragic 697 concurrent players for the first time, a figure that makes the 12,786 players of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav called a disappointment and caused a $200 million loss in revenue, look like a titan.
This comes after eight years of development and presumably tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars spent by Sony, a company that has already been said to be moving away from a heavy live service future. Sony president Hiroki Totoki has committed to releasing only six of 12 live service games in development, and one based on The Last of Us has already been canceled.
Ryan Dinsdale is a freelance reporter at IGN. He talks about The Witcher all day long.
