After eight years of development and months of marketing, Firewalk Studios’ supposed AAA first-person shooter Concord is shutting down this September. It is a stunning end to the franchise, and is now being considered as one of the biggest flops in gaming history—and for good reason.
Along with being plastered across social media and across PlayStation’s various menus, Concord was being heralded as the next contender in a genre with plenty of pretenders. From Overwatch to games like VALORANT, Apex Legends, or Marvel Rivals, the team-based hero shooter class of games has quickly become oversaturated, but Concord failed before it even made it out of the gate.
If you’re looking into the latest flop to grace the Hall of Shame in the annals of video game history, here is the exact reason why Concord is shutting down.
Concord’s sudden shut down, explained
In an announcement post, Concord game director Ryan Ellis said the devs “recognize that other aspects of the game and [their] initial launch didn’t land the way [they]’d intended,” and are now ceasing all sales, refunding all purchases of the game, and shutting down servers.
During Concord‘s debut weekend, Concord only reached an utterly crushing peak of under 700 players, according to SteamDB. It’s arguably the worst opening weekend of a supposed triple-A game in recent memory, and right now, there are only around 100 people playing.
There are also many criticisms for the game across the gaming community, including its cost of $40 USD in a market where most high-profile competitors have gone free-to-play. The gameplay wasn’t too inspiring either, with players calling it an “Overwatch clone with no innovative hook and catastrophically bad characters.”
Ultimately, Concord‘s lengthy development cycle, its lack of innovation in a overfull genre, and set price point all combined for a massive flop that could go down in history as the worst we’ve ever seen.
When is Concord shutting down servers?
Firewalk Studios developers will be shutting down the Concord servers on Friday, Sept. 6, while sales for Concord are immediately ceasing on Sept. 3. If you bought the game from the PlayStation Store or through PlayStation Direct, you will be issued a refund to the original payment method you used.
If you bought Concord on Steam or Epic Games, however, you should get confirmation from Steam or Epic Games that you’ve been refunded the full price of the game over the next several days. If a player has bought the game through physical retailers, you must return to the store and follow the refund process of the specific retailer.
