It has been two weeks since Concord"s engines went silent as Sony pulled the plug on the live service shooter"s servers. Now, a report has come out stating that game director Ryan Ellis has stepped down from his position at developer Firewalk Studios.
According to sources familiar with the situation speaking to Kotaku, Ryan Ellis is reportedly moving to a supporting position within the company while giving up his game director seat. Before moving to Firewalk and going on to lead Concord in 2017, Ellis previously had the creative director role at Bungie for Destiny 2.
“Regardless of there being things that could have been done differently throughout development...he’s a good human, and full of heart,” a former developer had added about Ellis.
When the game went dark, many speculated that the title might return as a free-to-play experience, lowering the $40 price tag, or at least be offered to PlayStation Plus members as a perk. The report says that Sony has not yet made a decision on the future of Concord nor Firewalk Studios, with staff at the company being pessimistic about a return. Some are already said to be updating their resumes for jumping ship, expecting a studio shutdown.
When the shooter went live in August, it saw only several hundred concurrent players on Steam. While nothing definitive was shared, PlayStation player numbers were speculated to be in a similar range considering the fast shut down only two weeks in. Refunds followed soon after. Estimates by analysts say that only around 25,000 units of the game had been sold at launch, not what anyone would expect from a PlayStation first-party-developed release being pushed by Sony.
Sony and Firewalk have not yet commented officially on what will happen to the game next. In its shutdown announcement, the studio said that it will explore options to "better reach our players."