Concord Developer Firewalk Studios is Being Shut Down

gamingbolt.com:

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced that it is shuttering two of its internal development teams in Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi.

Firewalk Studios was acquired by PlayStation in April last year, and earlier this year, in August, the studio released its debut title in Concord. The multiplayer first-person shooter was, however, met with lukewarm reception and disastrous sales, and just two weeks after release, it was pulled offline, while everyone who bought the game was refunded.

In an internal email sent to employees, PlayStation’s co-CEO Hermen Hulst wrote, “Certain aspects of Concord were exceptional, but others did not land with enough players, and as a result we took the game offline. We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options.

“After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio.  I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.

“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. We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”

Neon Koi, meanwhile, was acquired by PlayStation in 2022, back when the developer was still known as Savage Game Studios, as part of Sony’s efforts to expand into mobile gaming. Hulst says mobile remains an area that Sony will continue to focus on, but is now looking to do in more strategic fashion, as a result of which Neon Koi and the mobile action game it was working on are both being shut down.

“Expanding beyond PlayStation devices and crafting engaging online experiences alongside our single-player games are key focal areas for us as we evolve our revenue streams,” Hulst wrote in his email. “We need to be strategic, though, in bringing our games to new platforms and recognize when our games fall