In a recent press release, Herman Hulst, co-CEO of PlayStation announced that the Firewalk Studios will be shutting down. The studio was behind the famous sci-fi shooter game Concord which shut down just weeks after a disastrous launch earlier this year.
Herman Hulst further stated that such a decision was taken by the company considering its path in the future. Along with this, Neon Koi, the mobile gaming studio will also be shut down. According to the Bloomberg reports, the tremendous shutdown will affect around 210 jobs of the people.
Concord game was launched in August this year but the results were disappointing. Just weeks after the release of the game, Sony decided to close down the game completely in September. Just a month after the shutting down of the game, the company announces the closing down of the developing organization of Concord.
Concord has received a major backfire by merely 1,000 players and 25,000 copies sold all over. It took around 8 years to develop the game and Sony and the game claimed approximately $400 million budget. The title of the game was initially expected to compete against other famous hero shooter blockbusters like Valorant and Overwatch 2.
There were supposedly huge plans after the launching of the game and Sony has even planned to widen the franchise after a successful release. The company put forth the fact that the developers had tried saving the game by finding alternate means to fix it but yet failed to meet the player’s expectations. Herman Hulst has penned down a full memo on the official website of Sony expressing the company’s new decision.
As per the inner sources, it is revealed after the drastic release of the game, the company and its developers started becoming uncertain of the future of the game as well as the studio. Ryan Ellis, the game developer of Concord supposedly stepped down after the game received a major downfall.
It is also revealed that Ryan Ellis had a major breakdown regarding the failure of the game and has even decided to switch his role from game director to support position. Firewalk Studios was launched by Sony Interactive Entertainment in the year 2018 mainly aimed at producing some best shooter blockbusters. The studio and developers received a major blow after the release of Concord as the studio has put in much effort to develop the game.
The shutting down of the game and the Firewalk Studios within a small time gap has struck discussions in the gaming industry. Concerns and questions have been raised regarding the developers and the many people whose jobs are put at stake.
According to the reports, the company has already started looking for new spaces for their impacted developers and some of them will be settled for other roles in the company itself. It is also reported that some employees have permanently left the studio while many others remain to stay back in the hope of getting the layoffs.
Although not officially confirmed, rumors have been flying that the team at Firewalk Studios might be further appointed for co-development processes without having a complete influence on the main project of the company. There have also been concerns raised by the gamers who have already purchased Concord and the company has confirmed to refund every single penny spent on the purchase to their customers.
Sony Interactive Entertainment has always remained at the forefront of producing some of the best gaming experiences for users. Even though the new decision has created various speculations and inconveniences, the company has confirmed the fact that such a strong decision had to be made for the goodwill of the company in the future.
