'Concord' Is Shutting Down Its Servers After Only Two Weeks, Surprising Almost No One

It was the May 2024 PlayStation State of Play, the livestream event in which Sony announced many of its upcoming games for PlayStation consoles. With major releases like Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth having already come and gone for the year, PlayStation owners eagerly anticipated what would be next for the young next-gen console still eager to prove itself in a turbulent and uncertain era of gaming.

The 35-minute State of Play started with a 10-minute introductory overview of Concord, and everyone hated that.

The game immediately positioned itself as a new sci-fi hero shooter game in which players can choose from a variety of alien characters and compete in multiplayer shooting matches. It was released on Aug. 23, 2024, for PS5 and PC, but Sony subsequently announced that servers for the game would be shut down on Sept. 6, only two weeks after its initial launch.

When trying to discern why Concord failed, it wasn't console exclusivity, poor gameplay, and especially not "DEI." The truth is, the game was simply doomed from its announcement.

There are plenty of factors that have led to the downfall of Concord. The most prominent of these causes has to be the genre it's attached to.

As previously mentioned, players immediately recognized the game as another hero shooter from its initial reveal. Unfortunately, Concord came long after the hero shooter bubble had burst. The genre has been oversaturated over the past ten years thanks to the popularity of games like Overwatch back in 2016.

Studios have been trying to cash in on the hype for years with their own hero shooter titles, leading to highly controversial business models and dev cycles in which many titles were released with underbaked mechanics and gameplay with the intent to improve them over time with ongoing updates and microtransactions. The genre has long since tapped out its audience both physically and financially, with many hearkening to traditional single-player releases with more immediate player satisfaction to match increasing price tags.

Even Overwatch 2, the sequel to the very progenitor of hero shooter hype, wasn't immune to hero shooter fatigue. The sequel was released with several game-breaking bugs under the presumption that players would keep it afloat as Blizzard Entertainment tried to address its many issues during live services. Many have since decried it as a steep downgrade from the first.

With even the most successful hero shooters having lost their luster over the years, Concord had little chance of breaking new ground.

The game was reportedly in development for eight years, according to The Verge. It would have started around the time Overwatch first exploded onto the scene. By the time Concord was finally released, it had arrived too little, too late. After players were long disillusioned by the money-sink of the hero shooter genre, Concord had little chance of impressing them amidst a sea of same-y-looking games with little nuance or uniqueness to offer.

Of course, the price tag certainly didn't help. Concord was initially being sold for $40. While that price point is significantly less than the $70 tag attached to other major console releases, it's certainly not cheap when compared to paying no money at all. Many hero shooters released over the years have been released as free-to-play, meaning that players could download the game for free and pay more for certain upgrades if they wished.

In an era where gaming is already becoming more expensive by the financial quarter, $40 is far too steep for a game released in a genre built on what is essentially free gaming. It's little wonder that the game struggled to attract players and sold abysmally at only 25,000 units at launch. Reportedly, the game also experienced a peak player count of only 697 players on release and only about 2000 players during its pre-release beta.

One of the most shocking aspects about Concord's failure is that it's still possible for hero shooters to get a foothold these days. Marvel Rivals released a closed alpha and closed beta over the summer of 2024 and enjoyed more than 50,000 concurrent players in the latter test. Though its pre-release success is largely thanks to its cast of well-loved comic book characters, it still proves that there is some viability to the genre as long as you present it well.

In summation, though, Concord wasn't presented well. It was released during a time when hero shooters have become a hard sell, and asking people to break open their wallets for more of the same game that's been repurposed and repackaged hundreds of times by now was a bridge too far.

At this point, the only thing surprising about Concord's failure is the speed and vivacity with which the game ultimately fizzled out.