Remember Concord's fiasco? Sony now closed its creator Firewalk Studio

Sony has closed Firewalk Studios following the failed release of Concord, a PlayStation 5 shooter that lasted under two weeks before being pulled from shelves.

The shutdown, announced via a memo from SIE’s Hermen Hulst, also includes the closure of German-based Neon Koi, which was working on a mobile action game.

“The PvP first person shooter genre is a competitive space that’s continuously evolving, and unfortunately, we did not hit our targets with this title,” Hulst mentions.

The launch of Concord on PlayStation and PC was a disaster—so much so that it performed critically and financially worse than Xbox’s worst flop Redfall back in 2023.

The $40 price tag did not justify the saturated hero shoot genre at all, as well as its lackluster character designs. The game’s peak player count on Steam was low, and it was challenging to fill lobbies outside of popular game modes which suggested low engagement even on PS5.

“With this re-focused approach, Neon Koi will close, and its mobile action game will not be moving forward,” Hulst says further about Neon Koi’s mobile project, saying that it’s still in a “very early stage of our mobile efforts.”

Last year, Firewalk Studios joined PlayStation Studios, Sony’s division for studios owned by the Japanese-American video game giant, to “work on their first original AAA multiplayer game.” But, little did the studio know that it was the beginning of an end.

The announcement came at a challenging time for the gaming industry. Microsoft, Sony’s number-one competitor, has previously closed several Bethesda’s studios earlier this year. And, in September, the Redmond tech giant also cut off at least 650 jobs from its gaming division.

Ouch.