Well, it's official, folks: Concord is gone. The hero shooter FPS launched just two weeks ago to the day, but after poor sales and lukewarm reception, PlayStation halted sales, refunded all copies, and now it's pulled the game offline entirely.
After an eye-watering eight years in development, Concord's abrupt and shocking cancellation makes it a stronger contender for the worst launch of 2024, and arguably one of the poorest performances of any online game of the last decade or so. I can only think of a few off the top of my head whose launch states and shutdowns overshadowed the game itself to such an overwhelming degree.
Anthem, maybe? But at least EA and BioWare tried salvaging that with post-release content and then a switch to seasonal updates before ultimately cancelling all future content two years after its launch. Somewhat similarly, in 2015 Turtle Rock took a lot of heat for Evolve's infamous 44 DLC packs and the general development direction at launch, but it still stumbled through a months-long comeback strategy that culminated in the scrapping of future content plans in October 2016 and, ultimately, the shutdown of dedicated servers in September 2018. There was a faint attempt at reviving the zombie shooter in October 2022 when 2K reenabled the free-to-play Evolve: Stage 2 servers, but the servers were taken down "for the final time" in July 2023.
- Despite more than $60 million in investments, Shroud-backed FPS Spectre Divide and its dev are shutting down after the first season failed "to cover day-to-day costs"
- The Resident Evil deathmatch game that flopped is going offline as Capcom says it's "served its original, celebratory purpose admirably"
Concord servers are now offline.Thank you again to all the Freegunners who have joined us in the Concord galaxy. pic.twitter.com/o1dTywrqUxSeptember 6, 2024
I'm genuinely struggling to remember any instance where an online game of Concord's profile - that is, from a publisher as big as PlayStation - was taken down just weeks after it went live. And refunded, at that. Regardless, Concord is no longer playable and PlayStation's plans for the IP are unclear aside from the recent report claiming it'll still rather awkwardly be a part of Amazon's anthology TV series Secret Level.
In the final days of Concord's short life, it was filled with players throwing themselves off maps as quickly as possible in a desperate attempt to unlock the game's Platinum trophy. Now that the game's offline, whoever wasn't able to snag one is presumably out of luck for good, so as we bid farewell to the short-lived hero shooter, let's also pour one out for the trophy collectors who missed out.
At least we still have these picks from our list of the best FPS games to play.
Former Valve exec recounts the meeting where Half-Life's publisher almost killed the iconic FPS: "Half-Life would quietly die. I was stunned"
FBC: Firebreak may be Remedy's first live-service game but the Control creators are going about it the right way, confirming that all playable post-launch content "will always be free"
