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Sony Interactive Entertainment announced on October 29, 2024, that it was closing Bellevue, Washington-based Firewalk Studios and permanently sunsetting its multiplayer shooter Concord. The decision came less than three months after Sony completed its acquisition of Firewalk and roughly two months after Concord was pulled offline and refunded.
What Sony announced
Sony said it had decided to permanently close Firewalk Studios after reviewing its options following Concord’s unsuccessful launch. The company said some elements of the game were well received, but it did not attract enough players or meet its targets in a difficult competitive player-versus-player market.
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The announcement covered three separate decisions:
- Firewalk Studios would close.
- Concord would be permanently sunset rather than relaunched or reworked.
- Sony’s mobile studio Neon Koi would also close in a separate decision.
Neon Koi was not Firewalk, and it was not the studio behind Concord. Sony presented the two closures together as part of a broader review of its PlayStation Studios portfolio.
Sony’s official announcement is available in its October 2024 update from PlayStation Studios.
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What happened to Concord?
Concord launched on PlayStation 5 and PC on August 23, 2024. Sony and Firewalk announced on September 3 that the game would be taken offline on September 6, with sales ending and customers receiving full refunds.
The September notice initially left open the possibility that Sony and Firewalk might explore other options for the game. That possibility ended with the October 29 announcement: Concord would not return, and Firewalk would be closed.
The game was therefore not merely delayed, paused or delisted. It was withdrawn from service, refunded and then permanently sunset after Sony concluded that its launch performance did not justify continuing development and operations.
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PlayStation’s shutdown and refund notice confirmed the September 6 offline date.
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Firewalk’s short history with Sony
Firewalk was founded in 2018 and operated as a Bellevue-based studio under ProbablyMonsters. Sony announced an agreement to acquire the developer on April 20, 2023, saying Firewalk had nearly 150 employees and was developing an original AAA multiplayer game for PlayStation 5 and PC.
That acquisition placed Firewalk inside the PlayStation Studios organization for only about 18 months before the closure announcement. Concord was the studio’s first publicly released game and its only publicly released title. That wording matters: Firewalk may have had internal prototypes, unannounced work or other concepts that were never made public.
The acquisition announcement is documented in Sony’s April 2023 press release.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2018 | Firewalk Studios is founded. |
| April 20, 2023 | Sony announces its agreement to acquire Firewalk from ProbablyMonsters. |
| August 23, 2024 | Concord launches on PlayStation 5 and PC. |
| September 6, 2024 | Concord goes offline; sales stop and refunds begin. |
| October 29, 2024 | Sony announces that Concord will be permanently sunset and Firewalk will close. |
| November 1, 2024 | Washington WARN-related reporting lists the effective closure date for the Bellevue operation. |
Why did Sony close Firewalk?
Sony’s stated explanation is performance-related rather than a detailed public postmortem of Firewalk’s development. The company said Concord did not attract enough players, did not meet its targets and faced the difficult conditions of the competitive PvP first-person-shooter market.
Those facts support calling Concord a commercial failure: the game was removed after approximately two weeks, sales were halted, purchasers were refunded and the developer was then shut down. They do not establish that every internal design or management decision at Firewalk was flawed. Sony has not publicly assigned responsibility for specific choices involving the game’s design, positioning, marketing, launch timing or development process.
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The same distinction applies to commonly repeated claims about the game’s financial impact. Exact sales, development costs and total losses have not been officially disclosed. Reports may offer estimates, but they should not be treated as audited figures.
How many employees were affected?
The number depends on the source and the counting method. Sony described Firewalk as having nearly 150 employees when it announced the acquisition in 2023. Later Bloomberg-reported figures put the Firewalk job losses at approximately 172 employees, while Washington WARN-related records list 174 Firewalk workers affected in Bellevue.
A cautious summary is that approximately 170 to 174 Firewalk employees were affected. Those figures should not be combined with the separate Neon Koi layoffs without explanation. Bloomberg-reported figures put Neon Koi’s impact at approximately 38 employees, for a combined total of about 210 workers across the two studio closures.
Sony said it would try to place some affected employees in other roles across its global studio network where possible. The public announcement did not establish how many people were ultimately transferred, nor did it provide a complete breakdown of every employment arrangement.
The Washington filing is summarized by WARNTracker; the Bloomberg-reported figures were covered by GameSpot.
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What the closure means for Sony’s live-service strategy
The Firewalk closure does not show that Sony has abandoned live-service games. In its October statement, Sony said that expanding beyond PlayStation devices remained important and that online experiences would continue alongside single-player games.
The more defensible interpretation is that Concord increased pressure for stricter portfolio discipline. A live-service game needs enough players to support matchmaking, community activity and ongoing content. A rapid withdrawal leaves little opportunity to build that network effect, particularly when a game launches into a crowded market and fails to establish a large audience immediately.
Sony said it intended to learn from the experience and continue developing its live-service capabilities. That points to reassessment and greater selectivity—not a complete reversal of the company’s strategy.
What remains unknown
- The exact number of copies Concord sold.
- The game’s total development and marketing cost.
- Sony’s precise financial loss, if any, from the project.
- Which specific design, production or launch decisions contributed to the poor performance.
- Whether Firewalk technology, assets or unreleased work will be retained or reused elsewhere.
- How many Firewalk employees, if any, moved to other Sony studios.
The confirmed sequence is narrower but significant: Sony acquired a Bellevue studio, released its first public game, removed that game from sale after approximately two weeks, refunded customers, and closed the studio soon afterward. Sony says it will use the outcome to apply more discipline while continuing to pursue online games as part of its broader PlayStation portfolio.
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