Concord Archives - Dot Esports

The sad story of Concord, the failed FPS by Sony that lasted just two weeks before having its servers shut down, got even sadder today thanks to a new report.

Colin Moriarty, Sacred Symbols podcast host and former writer for IGN, reported on his show that Concord cost $400 million to make. The info came from a source who previously worked on the game and spoke to him under anonymity.

Concord director Ryan Ellis has stepped down from his role amid reports PlayStation is still trying to figure out what do with Firewalk Studios’ super-sized flop.

Kotaku today reported Ellis, who led Concord through its final phases, has been moved into a different role within Firewalk. Ellis had previously worked as a creative director on Destiny 2, which may have made him seem the perfect pick for PlayStation’s big new live-service title. Despite his relatively strong track record, however, the efforts that he and other developers put into Concord, it didn’t see similar success to Bungie’s titanically successful shooter.

In the small timeframe prior to Concord‘s shutdown, hardcore achievement hunters gave it their all to obtain the game’s Platinum Trophy given for 100 percent completion. However, it seems only a handful of the most dedicated players, 69 of them to be exact, managed to snag the top trophy.

As soon as Concord‘s shutdown was announced, players flocked to the game to try and score as much XP as possible to earn the coveted Platinum Trophy on the PlayStation platform. With the game becoming unavailable, the value of said trophy increased tenfold in the eyes of achievement hunters, who then promptly went to Concord to kill themselves as much as possible. Offing yourself is the quickest manner to end the match, netting a ton of XP. This was basically the only way to achieve said trophy without some sort of XP boost, which players did ask for. In the end, a mere 69 players succeeded (thanks, PSN Profiles) in attaining the top trophy for Concord—a number oddly fitting as one last dunk on Sony’s failed shooter.

Astro Bot’s success has rubbed more salt into the already sore wounds of PlayStation flop Concord, which reportedly surpassed its global sales numbers with only physical sales in a two-day period in the U.K.

The two PlayStation exclusives could not have had more different experiences, with Concord dead on arrival and Astro Bot jumping from strength to strength. According to GameIndustry.biz head Chris Dring, sales of Astro Bot in the United Kingdom “aren’t huge,” but the only data available so far is only for physical copies. Despite this, he added that Astro Bot has “certainly sold more copies in the U.K. in just two days than Concord sold worldwide.”

Sony Interactive Games and Firewalk Studios’ biggest flop for the year in Concord may be officially dead, but its planned television episode is still on track for release in Amazon Prime’s upcoming video game anthology series Secret Level.

Secret Level, which was announced during this year’s Gamescom’s Opening Night, is an adult anthology series where each of its 15 episodes is inspired by different video game franchises. While Concord crashed and burned only two weeks after it debuted, it may live on through its single episode in Secret Level which is still expected to air on Dec. 10, according to IGN.

Ah, Concord. The latest testament to the state of the ever-corporatized gaming industry. Its life was brief. Shorter than the lifespan of the average housefly. And a lot of other things, actually, so here are a few examples that outlasted Sony’s failed AAA shooter.

7) The average housefly

Every person under the Sun has, at some point, had a housefly buzzing around their head, sometimes for days on end. And those days can often tally up to 30, which would be twice as long as Concord‘s short-lived existence.

The landscape of the video games industry has changed so much in recent years, but no shift in the wind has been as influential as the live-service model.

There are a decent number of games that have been truly successful as a game-as-a-service (GaaS), with titles like Destiny 2, Warframe, Fortnite, Overwatch, Apex Legends, yearly Call of Duty titles, and some more coming to mind. But the list is short compared to the opposite end of the money-making spectrum.

The sudden closure of PlayStation hero shooter Concord came as a shock to many in the industry, but some felt it way more than others.

The game’s development team, unfortunately, feels it harder than anyone. After years of working on the game, only to see it shut down in just two weeks before any seasonal content in its roadmap could launch, it must be devastating. And then there are PS5 trophy hunters.

Concord’s dead after just two weeks and the playerbase’s gameplay is starting to reflect this, with Rivalry mode players repetitively killing themselves in matches.

This group slaughter isn’t just to dunk on the now-closed game though. Players have found SDing in matches leads to the fastest accumulation of XP. It’s why players are begging the devs for XP boosts before Concord fully goes offline; in order to get a Platinum trophy for Concord, players need to grind 10 million XP until they get to level 100. Some are already too daunted, but others are committed to getting the PlayStation achievement.

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.