Following Sony’s shock choice to haul stay service hero shooter Concord offline two weeks after launch, its sport director has reportedly stepped down with some workers involved about the way forward for the studio.
Kotaku studies that Ryan Ellis, who has served as Concord’s sport director since January 2018, has informed workers he has stepped down from the function and right into a help operate.
Ellis’ title was connected to the assertion revealed on the PlayStation Weblog that introduced Concord could be taken offline. Ellis mentioned that “whereas many qualities of the expertise resonated with gamers, we additionally acknowledge that different points of the sport and our preliminary launch didn’t land the best way we’d supposed.”
Concord is without doubt one of the largest online game disasters in PlayStation historical past. After years of expensive improvement, the PvP first-person shooter launched August 23 priced $40 on PC and PlayStation 5, however its gross sales have been estimated to be round solely 25,000 and its peak Steam concurrent participant depend was shockingly low (Sony doesn’t make PlayStation participant numbers public). Sony then eliminated Concord from sale simply 11 days after launch, issuing refunds within the course of.
In accordance with Kotaku, workers at the 150-person Firewalk, which Sony acquired in 2023 for an undisclosed charge, are anxiously awaiting their destiny. Whereas Ellis has indicated that Firewalk would “discover choices” that counsel Concord could return in some type, some workers are mentioned to be skeptical. Kotaku studies that some have been requested to pitch concepts for brand new video games, some are speculating they might be drafted in to assist develop one other Sony sport, whereas others concern mass layoffs or perhaps a studio shutdown.
Sony’s gaming enterprise has already suffered vital cuts in 2024. In February, it introduced a spherical of layoffs affecting 900 workers, or about 8% of its world PlayStation workforce. The layoffs impacted numerous PlayStation studios, together with Insomniac, Naughty Canine, Guerrilla, and Firesprite, however PlayStation’s London studio was hit hardest with a discover of closure. Since then, Sony-owned Bungie has additionally suffered devastating cuts as Future 2 struggles to seek out business success.
Whereas Concord the online game is not any extra, it would stay on later this yr as a part of Amazon’s Secret Degree grownup animation anthology sequence. However Sony faces powerful questions on its stay service plans, which embrace Bungie’s Marathon and Haven’s Fairgame$.
Final yr, Sony president Hiroki Totoki dedicated to launching simply six of 12 stay service video games in improvement, and one based mostly on The Final of Us has already been canceled.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.