This Washington-based developer was founded in 2018 by senior veterans of popular shooters like Halo and Destiny. With this prestige multiplayer expertise and Sony's increased focus on live-service games for PS5 & PC, it's therefore no surprise they acquired Firewalk in early 2023.
Firewalk then announced their first game, Concord, shortly after. It's a sci-fi 5vs5 live-service shooter that released on PS5 and PC in August 2024.
It wasn't until May 2024 before we actually saw Concord, via trailers that had the story and gameplay resemble a Temu Guardians of the Galaxy and Overwatch respectively.
The playable betas in July didn't help either. Character designs were universally negative and the gameplay wasn't good enough to justify $40. Especially compared to its F2P competitors like Fortnite.
This all led to a historically poor launch for Sony. It's tied with Firewall Ultra as the worst reviewed PS Studios PS5 game on Metacritic at 62 and only sold 25k copies. Totalling around $1 million in revenue despite a $200 million+ budget.
It was so bad that Sony removed Concord from sale and refunded all purchases just 11 days later. Firewalk explored options on how to bring back Concord in a way that resonates, but on October 29th, Firewalk was shut down along with confirmation that Concord won't return.
This was the first time Sony refunded a game due to its reception. It also resulted in over $200 million in losses and led to Firewalk closing. Concord and Firewalk are therefore easily the biggest PS Studios disappointment of the PS5 era.
Genre: Live Service FPS
Release Date: August 23, 2024 (Shut down: September 6, 2024)
Days Since Their Last Game: N/A
Metacritic Score: 62