Concord free-to-play hopes dashed by expert, game may never return

Hardly any hope remains for the players who once had high expectations for Concord after free-to-play opportunities seem less and less likely.

Few titles suffer a fate quite as bleak and tragic as Concord.

When the PlayStation 5 game was killed after just two weeks, full refunds for players were issued. Still, the impact of this shock culling reverberated throughout the industry.

Seeing the Concord trailer is bittersweet now

Much speculation regarding why this happened has appeared online since, however, many believe that “trend-chasing” ultimately led to its demise.

Despite this series of events, fans had been holding out hope that Concord would live on via free-to-play experiences.

Unfortunately, even that seems destined to crash and burn before it’s ever given the chance to succeed.

According to one Resetera member, if the game becomes free-to-play – which seems increasingly unlikely – it would need to “find an audience quickly”.

Failure to do so would see it “quietly shuttered” to avoid further shock and awe from curious onlookers who can’t turn away from this car crash.

The problem with taking this route is that the PlayStation game wasn’t designed around monetisation, as explained by user Dan Thunder.

“Doing that's going to be a hell of a task though as the game was designed around progress not being monetised,” they commented.

What is more, even if by some miracle it makes it past those enormous hurdles, the industry is currently inundated with similar experiences delivering better content. As industry analyst and Circana executive director Mat Piscatella explained on BlueSky, the game has already been "soundly rejected" by its audience.

Concord’s remains are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

This is an unusual predicament, though, even when taking into account the number of studio closures and layoffs the video games industry has suffered this year.

As a result, anything is possible. Still, just because it could be brought back from the dead doesn’t mean it will or should be.

The fate that’s befallen Concord and its developers, Firewalk Studios, is truly sad, especially with little wiggle room available to claw its way back.