Summary
Concordhad a lot of problems during development. We’ll never know exactly what went down at Firewalk Studios,but it’s pretty clear from the game’s receptionandsubsequent shut down- as well as its potentially massive budget - that development was a struggle, though it’s now been claimed that the culture at Firewalk may have had a hand in the game’s downfall.
According to Sacred Symbols host Colin Moriarty - an industry insider with a fairly decent track record - Concord suffered thanks to a culture of “toxic positivity.“In his most recent episode, Moriarty claims that he spoke “extensively” with a developer that worked on Concord, who allegedly told him that higher ups and developers at Firewalk wouldn’t allow negative feedback during development.
“You weren’t allowed to say anything internally about this game - about how something’s wrong with it, character designs are not right, and so on and so forth. They really truly believed. This was Hermen Hulst’s baby, apparently.”
Concord Devs Reportedly Refused To Listen To Negative Feedback
Of course, we have absolutely no way of knowing whether the info given to Moriarty is accurate or not, but its authenticity was increased dramatically by Kotaku senior reporter Ethan Gach. Shortly after Moriarty’s podcast went live, Gach claimed via his personal Twitter account thathe could corroborate Moriarty’s claims about the “toxic positivity” at Firewalk.
Gach explains that several sources at the studio reportedly blame a “head in the sand” mentality for Concord’s failure, and that this attitude was embedded in the studio thanks to its Bungie roots. In case you didn’t know, Firewalk is made up of several developers that worked at studios like Bungie and Activision, two companies that just so happen to haveundergone their own internal struggles in recent years.
While Bungie has yet to have any massive development flops like Concord,there doesn’t appear to be much enthusiasm surrounding its current extraction shooter Marathon, which is set to launch next year.
Gach also claims that there was a sense within Firewalk that Concord would eventually come together as the team working on it was “too good to fail”. That will sound pretty familiar to a lot of you reading this, as the idea that games will magically come together after years of strife is depressingly common throughout the industry,most infamously at BioWare during the development of Anthem.
We’ve yet to see how the failure of Concord will impact Firewalk, but the fact thatthe game’s director has stepped down and taken a support role at the studiois already a bad sign. Layoffs are almost inevitable given how much money Sony has spent getting Concord over the finish line, especially in today’s cutthroat industry, but we can only wait and hope that they aren’t too severe.
Concord
WHERE TO PLAY
Concord is an upcoming FPS from Firewalk Studios, part of the PlayStation Studios family. A PvP multiplayer title, it is slated for launch on both PS5 and PC in 2024.
