Concord Is Suddenly Getting Pulled Offline With Sony Promising Full Refunds

ign.com:

PlayStation hero shooter Concord will be taken offline on September 6, 2024 and all players will receive a full refund, Sony announced today.

Announced on the PlayStation Blog, director Ryan Ellis said "while many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended."

Concord will therefore be taken offline so Sony and developer Firewalk Studios can "explore options, including those that will better reach our players."

The game will be removed from sale immediately and anyone who purchased on the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Direct will be refunded to their original payment methods. Those who purchased on Steam and the Epic Games Store will be refunded in the coming days.

Physical refunds are a tad trickier but players can check with individual retailers to obtain a refund. Sony will presumably organise a system with them itself that allows all refunds to be processed fully. "Once refunded, players will no longer have access to the game," Sony made clear.

Concord arrived August 23, 2024, meaning it has been removed from sale just 11 days after launch and taken offline for all players a mere two weeks after. Even those who bought Concord will no longer be able to play after September 6.

Its launch was nothing short of disastrous, with analysts telling IGN it has likely sold as few as 25,000 units. It debuted to a tragic 697 peak concurrent players on Steam, a number that made the 12,786 players of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which was dubbed a disappointment by Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav and caused a $200 million hit to revenue, look like a titan.

This comes after eight years of development and presumably tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars, spent by Sony, a company already said to be shifting gears away from a live service heavy future. Sony president Hiroki Totoki committed to launching just six of 12 live service