Remember Concord? Well, it is not be as dead as you think. Even though Sony officially pulled the plug over a month ago, the game’s Steam version is still getting updates.
When Sony first revealed Concord earlier this year, it was met with the same enthusiasm you’d expect for a Monday morning meeting. People were expecting another epic, story-driven blockbuster. But instead, Concord turned out to be a live-service, multiplayer-only hero shooter with horrible character design.
So when Concord hit the market as a $40 premium game, most players took one look and noped out of there. PlayStation fans weren’t impressed, and over on Steam, it was even worse. At its peak, Concord couldn’t even break 700 concurrent players.
So naturally, It didn’t take long for Sony to announce that Concord would be shutting down, though they left the door slightly open for a possible return.
And recently, A Reddit user noticed that Concord’s Steam files are still being updated. The most recent one dropped on October 8th.
After that, people to speculation has began, and some think Concord might be gearing up for a comeback—as a free-to-play game.
Could Concord Pull Off a Free-to-Play Revival?
If Concord goes free-to-play, it could be just the life boost it needs. Free games tend to pull in way more players than paid ones—go figure, right?
But let’s not kid ourselves here. Slapping a free tag on Concord doesn’t magically fix everything.
The game still has a major hurdle to overcome: those horrible character designs which no one wants.
Making it free won’t suddenly make the characters more appealing.
There is a small silver lining, though. Concord is set to appear in Secret Level, an animated anthology series hitting Amazon this December. Maybe getting some pop culture exposure will help it find its footing again?
Perhaps, perhaps not, because you know Stranger things have happened.
Let’s not forget Concord’s beta period. PC gamers had the chance to try the game for free back then, and… it didn’t exactly go great.
Even At its peak, the beta only drew in 2,388 players. Sure, that’s better than what the paid version managed, but still, not exactly a comeback story for the ages.
So Even if it goes free-to-play, Concord is looking at a pretty steep uphill climb to win over players.
But what about PSN?
Even if Concord does make the leap as free-to-play game, there’s one more problem that could scare off potential Steam players: the PSN account requirement.
Sony’s been pushing this on its Steam games, and, unsurprisingly, it hasn’t gone over well.
In fact, some gamers have been so ticked off about the PSN account requirement that they’ve taken to review bombing. So, if Concord sticks to that requirement, it could still struggle to pull in Steam users, even with the free-to-play label.
