Sony and PlayStation's multiplayer shooter Concord is one of the biggest flops of 2024

Concord is a new first-person competitive hero shooter from Firewalk Studios and the latest first-party PlayStation game to launch simultaneously on PC and PlayStation 5. Earlier this year, Sony found immediate and incredible success in releasing the multiplayer-focused Helldivers 2 on PC and PS5.

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Was it hoping to replicate that success with Concord? Most likely. However, the opposite has happened - Concord has had one of the worst game launches in recent memory, hitting a maximum of 697 concurrent players on its first weekend on Steam. And it's dropping fast.

This is a dramatically lower player count than even 2024's most notorious flop, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and a death sentence for a competitive shooter. By all accounts, the gameplay of Concord isn't the issue, nor is the overall performance and polish of the game - the game isn't resonating with gamers for a few key reasons. Let's break them down.

Based on reviews, feedback, and pre-release sentiment, there are two main reasons why the game failed to find players.

It's a Bland Hero Shooter

Sony formally announced and detailed Concord earlier this year. The immediate response to learning that it was a "hero shooter" like Overwatch or Valorant disappointed PlayStation fans yearning for a new single-player game.

It didn't help that the world and characters looked like a poor man's version of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Blizzard's Overwatch is a hero shooter with characters that resonate, from the giant gorilla-turned-scientific Winston to the speedy Tracer and the mech-riding D.Va. Concord's characters are bland and unappealing as heroes, which is not ideal for a "hero shooter."

$40 for a competitive shooter in 2024

Sony charges $40 USD for the game, a multiplayer-only shooter alongside free-to-play titles like Overwatch 2, Valorant, Apex Legends, Counter-Strike 2, and the upcoming Marvel Rivals. The latter is a free-to-play hero shooter with a cast of some of the most iconic heroes of all time, with its recent betas dwarfing Concord in terms of engagement. Ahead of Concord's launch, Sony and Firewalk Studios held closed and open betas for the game, which failed to find a sizeable audience on PC and PlayStation 5, so deciding to stick with the $40 price point became even more difficult to understand.

There are other reasons why Concord has seemingly flopped in its first weekend. With very little marketing behind the game, its release has been overshadowed by the launch of Black Myth: Wukong and Valve's official announcement of Deadlock, its new multiplayer game with tens of thousands of concurrent players.