Changes have arrived to Firewalk Studios, even before Sony has even made their move.
Kotaku reports that Ryan Ellis, the game director for Concord, has stepped down from his position to becoming support for Firewalk Studios. They also say the studio themselves still don’t know their fate, as they await word from Sony.
Ellis had previously been creative director at Destiny 2, and has been working in the video game industry since the 2000s. His game credits include Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, and Spider-Man 2 from 2004.
As the game director, Ryan was characterized as “the main shot caller” on Concord. One of Kotaku’s sources said this:
“Ryan deeply believed in that project and bringing players together through the joy in it.
Regardless of there being things that could have been done differently throughout development…he’s a good human, and full of heart.”
Ellis wrote that post on PlayStation Blog announcing the game’s closure. Behind the scenes, he had also been too emotional to keep talking during a studio wide meeting after its launch.
Kotaku claims there are somewhere between 150 to 170 employees in the studio now, and some are already exploring other options. Subsequently, several artists at Firewalk have shared some of their production artworks for Concord online. You can see some samples on Twitter here, here, here, and here.
While prospects now seem dim that Concord, and even Firewalk Studios, will continue, Sony has also not yet signaled what they intend to do at this time. Since it seems Sony still intends to sell their future live service games at a retail price of $ 40, that may or may not open opportunities for Firewalk in the future.
For example, Sony may choose to keep Firewalk around mainly as a support studio for other live service games, or just to work with their more high profile studios in general. There is definitely still value in that talent in that regard, if not as a studio that makes their own games.
Alternatively, the team may be split up across those high profile Sony studios. Sucker Punch Productions is in the same city of Bellevue, Washington, and Valkyrie Entertainment is located in the same state, in the city of Seattle.
If Sony repeats what they have done this year, their most likely plan of action will unfortunately mean some layoffs, but also see some people be retained. We’re not sure if Ryan or anyone else in Firewalk can actually resign at this time, given how recently the studio was acquired. But at this point, we are speculating beyond reason. We wish the people at Firewalk Studios the best in the future, and we do hope they continue to find work in the video game industry.
