Concord's surprise return might be short-lived as dev suspends invites after "worrying legal action"'

Still hoping for a second chance to hop on what Sony's short-lived attempt at making one of the best FPS games around? You're in luck. Well, not anymore, actually. If you're reading this, there's a good chance you've missed the boat. Again. One year after Sony said it was "permanently sunsetting" hero shooter Concord from Firewalk Studios, just two weeks after its late 2024 release, a small crew has managed to resurrect it. Briefly.

This is far from an official Concord relaunch. Outside of the Stop Killing Games movement making waves (ok, a splash) around the UK government recently, there has been no public display of support big enough to have Sony dig up the still-warm corpse of Concord and give it another shot. Though we can all imagine the internet would treat it like the second coming of Morbius if that were to happen.

First reported by The Game Post, that meant a handful of impassioned Concord fans-or even those who missed the boat the first time around-reverse-engineering the title, getting so far as to matchmake into a Clash Point match as if the game were still alive and well, with plans to "begin doing some private playtesting."

The Concord Delta project and its Discord server were announced on Reddit the very same day the official Concord Discord server went dark. With the project then in its "very early stages," it wouldn't be for another year that their efforts would bear fruit; you know, before seemingly rotting off the branches of the digital tree of life.

Mere hours after news broke of Concord's potential rebirth, the DMCA takedowns arrived, making the second death of Sony's big multiplayer hero shooter even swifter than its first. Those plans to invite others to join them? Gone. A message from one of the developers on the Discord, caught by The Game Post, read, "Due to worrying legal action we've decided to pause invites for the time being." Easy come, easy go.

Two videos, which demonstrated the game being alive and relatively well, were struck down on YouTube, naming a copyright claim from MarkScan Enforcement as the culprit. Though the handle has been known to swat content that includes Sony products, even outside of Sony Interactive Entertainment, it has also been linked to the removal of videos showcasing emulation efforts, mods, and circumvention methods relating to the intellectual property of Nintendo and Microsoft over the years.

What has happened here is far from the first time a community has formed to breathe life back into a previously shuttered game. But before we start pointing fingers at Sony, it's important to note the legal gray area this particular situation falls into.

There's the usual argument that you should have perpetual access to software you purchase. But Concord's life was so short that refunds were issued for all players, withdrawing the license-and thus the legal entitlement to play the game-from anyone who purchased it digitally. And without said legal entitlement, anyone reverse-engineering the short-lived title to restore online functionality is tampering with something they don't own.

Now, boxed copies do exist for the PS5 version. These obviously can't be pried from the hands of those who own them. But with the claim of "exactly one person trying to play it on Steam" just a few months ago, a platform that executed those automatic refunds, someone was potentially doing something they maybe shouldn't have been doing not long before evidence of Concord Delta's success hit YouTube.

Though it wouldn't be the first time a big company has sniped a fan revival project just to release it themselves a little while after, the dissolution of Firewalk Studio as the servers went down last year should be enough to suggest that this one isn't coming back.

Do I think Concord would see some level of success if it were to resurface as a free PC game? Absolutely. Is it likely to happen a year after it was unceremoniously shot in the head? With the event leading to the cancellation of Sony's other in-progress live-service titles, I wouldn't recommend holding your breath. But as someone who has been pining for Square Enix to give FF14 players the chance to experience what came before A Realm Reborn, even as someone who briefly experienced that particular muddy mark on the company's reputation, I can't blame the Concord Delta troupe for trying.