Sony has officially confirmed they are shutting down Firewalk Studios and ending development on Concord.
In an unusual move, Hermen Hulst cleared the public release of an internal email to PlayStation employees where they shared this news.
Hulst broke the news in this way:
“After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio. I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.
The PvP first person shooter genre is a competitive space that’s continuously evolving, and unfortunately, we did not hit our targets with this title. We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.
I know none of this is easy news to hear, particularly with colleagues and friends departing SIE. Both decisions were given serious thought, and ultimately, we feel they are the right ones to strengthen the organization. “
In the same email, Hulst also revealed that Sony was closing Neon Koi, a mobile gaming studio they acquired in 2022. Sony confirmed to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that Sony was laying off 210 employees from both studios.
For their part, Firewalk Studios shared their own farewell message, and laid out what they believe where the achievements the studio had achieved in incubation all the way to full production.
We feel these are worth acknowledging as well, as they were able to:
- Build the team during the lockdown/quarantine phase of the pandemic
- Build their own FPS engine on Unreal
- Achieve 60 FPS performance on both Windows and PlayStation 5
And of course, they were able to do all this while integrating into Sony and delivering a full product. They also acknowledge that they took some risks that did not pay off, but strongly emphasize their capabilities.
For those who may not realize it, Firewalk’s statement is not intended as fodder for gamer discourse. It’s intended to help the studio sell themselves, or at least their employees, to future employers.
We do think it’s a strong message that would land with Sony’s peers and rivals, such as Respawn, Saber Interactive, WB Games Montreal. We may even see some of them make their way to a Microsoft owned studio. After all, their Bellevue Washington location is in the same state as Microsoft, and coincidentally, Nintendo.
We will let Firewalk share their farewells to the fans that they did make:
“The talent at Firewalk and the level of individual craft is truly world-class, and teams within Sony Interactive Entertainment and across the industry will be fortunate to work with them. Please reach out to Recruiting at PlayStation for inquiries, and thank you to all the very many teams, partners and fans who supported us along the way.
See you in the Tempest.”
