Sony removes Concord from PlayStations following sudden shutdown

After abruptly shutting down the Concord live services, Sony has started to take the game out of players’ PlayStation consoles manually. The decision comes up after the brief and unfortunate release of this multiplayer shooter that went live for about one week before being taken offline.

Gamers who bought the digital version of Concord are now receiving notification messages that the game has been deleted from their accounts.

Sony has taken a rare and unusual step from a major publisher to delete Concord’s digital version from gamer’s libraries.  A notice issued to the affected users explained that the live streams for the game went offline on September 6, leaving the game unplayable, and in turn, the content was deleted from their accounts.

Although shutting down online services for a game makes it unplayable, it is not a common practice to completely delete the game from the players’ libraries. Most often, live-service games remain in users’ libraries, even if they are no longer accessible.

Sony removes Concord from consoles following the Game’s sudden failure

From the beginning, it was apparent that Concord, a high-budget, multiplayer-only hero shooter from Firewalk Studios, was struggling. The game launched with a minimal player base and failed to attract the large numbers necessary to support an online-only game.

For this reason, Sony and Firewalk then almost immediately removed the game from the internet, refunding everyone who had bought it. This quick response indicated how poorly the game performed during its limited time on the market.

The decision to remove Concord from consoles completely, on the other hand, has raised concerns over why Sony opted for this approach, which appears unwarranted for most live-service games. Most players expect that when a live service game and its content are shut down, they retain access to the title even if they can no longer play it. In the case of Concord, Sony’s approach marks one of the first times a game has been actively removed from digital libraries by a publisher following a service shutdown. 

However, players who bought the physical copies of Concord are still able to launch the game, but cannot move past the title screen. This aligns with the more conventional result when live-service titles go offline.

Rumors circulate about Concord’s potential comeback

Concord is still a topic of discussion in the game community, even after the game has been taken down. Many rumors developed that Sony would consider reviving the game in a free-to-play format. Others are speculating that the game developer is just distancing itself from this failed project.

Although it has not been officially announced what the next step will be, it is confirmed that Concord will be featured in one of the episodes of Amazon’s forthcoming anthology series Secret Level. Hence, the game will surely make an impact on popular culture even after its premature exit from the market.