Sony has announced that it has shut down Firewalk Studios, the developer behind the multiplayer-shooter game Concord. Additionally, Concord has been permanently sunset, dashing any hopes of a revival.
“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,” Sony said in a statement. “We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”
Sony has also closed down Neon Koi, a mobile studio that was working on an action game that will no longer be moving forward. Neon Koi was previously known as Savage Game Studios and it was acquired by Sony in 2022.
According to Bloomberg, 210 employees will be impacted, with 172 from Firewalk and 38 from Neon Koi losing their jobs.
Last month, Concord director Ryan Ellis reportedly stepped down to a support role while the future of Firewalk remained unclear. Employees were reportedly pitching future projects while others were anticipating layoffs and preparing their portfolios. Sony already suffered a round of layoffs earlier this year.
Concord launched on August 23 for PS5 and PC, but was taken offline on September 6 due to low player count and reportedly low sales. There were hopes from players and fans that Concord could make a comeback in another form, such as going free-to-play, but now Sony has confirmed that the game will not be coming back. This marks the latest in a devastating series of mass layoffs and studio closures throughout the games industry.
