The music didn’t play for long: Sony will close the Concord development studio after the failed shooter

The studio behind the failed team-based hero shooter Concord will live a little longer than the game itself – Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced the decision to close Firewalk Studios.

Image source: Steam (Seddi)

Let’s remember that on August 23, Firewalk released Concord on PC and PS5. The game did not attract enough attention from players, and after just two weeks, Sony turned off the project’s servers and returned the money to all buyers.

At that time, Concord still had a chance to restart, but, as SIE co-director Hermen Hulst now reports, “after much deliberation” it was decided to finally bury the game, and at the same time close the studio.

«The PvP shooter genre is a competitive and changing environment, and, alas, we did not achieve results with this project. We will take the lessons from Concord and continue to develop our capabilities in the field of gaming services to achieve growth in this area,” assured Hulst.

Image source: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Together with Firewalk Studios, SIE decided to close another of its internal game studios – we are talking about Neon Koi (Savage Game Studios until last fall), specializing in mobile projects.

According to Hulst, to achieve success in the mobile direction, the company needs to focus on the most promising developments that are close to the spirit of PlayStation. Neon Koi and its unannounced action game had no place in this strategy.

Savage Game Studios joined PlayStation Studios in August 2022, and Firewalk Studios acquired the platform in April 2023. Hulst expressed confidence that the closure of both studios will contribute to the strengthening of SIE.