Concord Lives Again As Fan-Made Project Unveils Gameplay Test Videos

"The story of Concord is a cautionary tale in the age of live-service games. Years of development and millions of dollars went into the game, only for it to fail at launch and get canceled by Sony weeks later. However, Conord had some fans, and a trio of them worked very hard to bring the game back to life on a server."

"As reported by The Game Post, Concord's partial resurrection is due to reverse engineering by a user called Red, a rebuild of the game's backend API by open_wizard, and an additional assist from a programmer called gwog. The team shared a pair of a gameplay videos to demonstrate their achievement, but noted that Concord is still somewhat buggy. The trio successfully tested their ability to load the game, pick their characters, and run a full Clash Point match."

""The project is still WIP, it's playable, but buggy," wrote Red. "Once our servers are fully set up, we'll begin doing some private playtesting." When Concord launched in 2024, it debuted to only 25,000 players. Sony subsequently shut down the game's developer, Firewalk Studios. In the aftermath, Sony recommitted to live-service games and shared some of the hard lessons it learned from the ordeal. Sony Interactive Entertainment chief executive of studio business Hermen Hulst attributed its failure to a lack of oversight."

Concord was a live-service game that failed at launch despite years of development and millions of dollars in investment. Sony canceled the game weeks after launch and shut down developer Firewalk Studios following low player counts. A trio of fans reverse engineered parts of the game, rebuilt the backend API, and set up servers to partially restore functionality. The team shared gameplay videos showing they could load the game, select characters, and complete a Clash Point match, though bugs remain. The group plans private playtesting once servers are fully configured. The game's collapse prompted Sony to reassess live-service oversight and sparked preservation debates in the UK House of Commons.

Read at GameSpot