Summary
- Sony’s shift towards live-service games has mixed results.
- The high-profile failure of Concord has “shell-shocked” Sony, according to Jeff Grubb.
- Sony still has several live-service games in production but has also cancelled several.
A few years ago, Sony, sensing a ripe opportunity, decided to aggressively expand into the live-service space. This was confusing for fans, as the majority of the publisher’s first-party studios are renowned for their single-player games.
Sony’s decision to aggressively expand into the live-service space was confusing to fans, as the majority of the publisher’s first-party studios are renowned for their singleplayer games. Nevertheless, Sony persisted in its live-service push and occasionally found success, most notably with Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2.
However, the cracks began to show even before the expensive failure of Concord. Naughty Dog was slated to release a live-service spin-off of The Last Of Us but eventually cancelled the project to focus on single-player games. The studio felt if it persisted in releasing a live-service game, they would be stuck supporting it for years to come and wouldn’t have the resources to develop other games as a result.
Dead Service
However, the biggest shift in priorities came after the release of Concord, the debut title of Firewalk Studios. Despite the expensive cinematics and marketing from Sony, there never seemed to be a large amount of interest in Concord. It’s a difficult market for a pay-to-play live-service that uses a new IP, and these factors ultimately prompted Sony to shut the game down just a few weeks after release.
Yesterday, a God of War live-service from Bluepoint Games and an unknown live-service from Bend Studio were cancelled by Sony. In total, six live-service games have been cancelled by Sony since the beginning of its push. These include Spider-Man: The Great Web from Insomniac and an unknown live-service from London Studio.
According to Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb, the recent God of War and Bend Studio cancellations are a direct result of Concord’s failure. On an episode of Game Mess Decides, Grubb addressed the recent cancellations, saying “This happened because of Concord. This should be clear, that’s what I’ve been told. Sony has been shell-shocked by Concord, and now they’re going around to every studio and they’re reassessing every single project. If it’s a live service project, it has a lot of friction going against it preventing it from getting a chance to actually come out.”
Sony still has several live-service projects in active development but appears to have cemented a new strategy of releasing a triple-A singleplayer game annually. The in-development live-service projects are Fairgame$ (Haven Studios), a Horizon live-service (Guerilla), Marathon (Bungie) and a Horizon MMO (NCSoft).
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.