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, it's no surprise they acquired Firewalk in April 2023.
Firewalk then announced their first game, Concord, shortly after in May 2023. A 5vs5 live-service shooter that released on PS5/PC in August 2024. Yet it took until May 2024 before we actually saw Concord, via story and gameplay trailers that were universally hated.
Playable betas in July didn't help either. Character designs were particularly slated and the gameplay wasn't good enough to justify $40. Especially compared to its F2P competitors like Fortnite.
Concord was 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. These results were so bad that Sony removed Concord from sale and refunded all purchases just 11 days later.
Firewalk explored how to bring back Concord in a way that resonates, but on October 29th, Firewalk closed along with confirmation that Concord wouldn't return. It therefore easy to predict that they'll be no more more Firewalk games on PS5.
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