UPDATE: According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Sony’s closures of Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi will result in 210 people being let go in total. Firewalk sees 172 people lose their jobs while Neon Koi is another 38.
ORIGINAL: Sony is shutting down Firewalk Studios. The news was first broken by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, and Insider Gaming was quickly able to corroborate with sources.
Sony made the announcement public shortly after the news broke in a message on its official website.
“We consistently evaluate our games portfolio and status of our projects to ensure we are meeting near and long-term business priorities,” PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst said. “As part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen SIE’s Studio Business, we have had to make a difficult decision relating to two of our studios – Neon Koi and Firewalk Studios.”
Hulst says that over the last few months the team at PlayStation explored “all [their] options” regarding the game. Despite those efforts, however, the decision was made to close the studio and sunset the game for good.
“After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio,” he said. ” I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”
He continued: “I know none of this is easy news to hear, particularly with colleagues and friends departing SIE. Both decisions were given serious thought, and ultimately, we feel they are the right ones to strengthen the organization.”
Concord launched in late August to less than 1,000 players on Steam and roughly 25,000 copies sold. The game was shut down two weeks later with talk of a potential return as a possible free-to-play shooter.
Ultimately, that didn’t happen and Sony has moved on. There was no mention by Sony if all employees will be let go or move to other areas within the company.
Insider Gaming has reached out to Sony for clarification on employment status for those at Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi. There have been nearly 14,000 known jobs lost to layoffs in 2024 within the games industry across nearly 160 companies.
You can read Hulst’s full memo to staff below.
Dear Team,
Today, I want to share some important updates from Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Studio Business Group.
We consistently evaluate our games portfolio and status of our projects to ensure we are meeting near and long-term business priorities. As part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen SIE’s Studio Business, we have had to make a difficult decision relating to two of our studios – Neon Koi and Firewalk Studios.
Expanding beyond PlayStation devices and crafting engaging online experiences alongside our single-player games are key focal areas for us as we evolve our revenue streams. We need to be strategic, though, in bringing our games to new platforms and recognize when our games fall short of meeting player expectations.
While mobile remains a priority growth area for the Studio Business, we are in the very early stage of our mobile efforts. To achieve success in this area we need to concentrate on titles that are in-line with PlayStation Studios’ pedigree and have the potential to reach more players globally.
With this re-focused approach, Neon Koi will close, and its mobile action game will not be moving forward. I want to express my gratitude to everyone at Neon Koi for their hard work and endless passion to innovate.
Regarding Firewalk, as announced in early September, certain aspects of Concord were exceptional, but others did not land with enough players, and as a result we took the game offline. We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options.
After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio. I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.
The PvP first person shooter genre is a competitive space that’s continuously evolving, and unfortunately, we did not hit our targets with this title. We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.
I know none of this is easy news to hear, particularly with colleagues and friends departing SIE. Both decisions were given serious thought, and ultimately, we feel they are the right ones to strengthen the organization. Neon Koi and Firewalk were home to many talented individuals, and we will work to find placement for some of those impacted within our global community of studios where possible.
I am a big believer in the benefits of embracing creative experimentation and developing new IP. However, growing through sustainable financials, especially in a challenged economic environment is critical.
While today is a difficult day, there is much to look forward to in the months ahead from the Studio Business Group and our teams. I remain confident that we are building a resilient and capable organization driven by creating unforgettable entertainment experiences for our players.
Thank you for your continued support.
Didn’t they just relaunch or plan to relaunch Concord? What is going on over there? Also where is Fair Game$?
Herman Hulst should be looked at all these acquisitions were under him and this game was his idea. He and Jim Ryan were both idiots. All these new studios outside Bluepoint had nothing of value just more live service which was their plan. Bungie, Firewalk, Firesprite, Haven, Housemarque, and the other acquisitions were all wastes. Bungie I assume has to be next they vastly overpaid for Bungie no one played Destiny like that and they wasted billions then Marathon has development problems and is another live service title no one will play. Then their previous studios are lost thanks to them also having live service titles long in development now cancelled like Factions, Spider-Verse, Guerilla’s live service game, and Sucker Punch’s live service game. Then there’s the strikes and potential strike on the horizon with game developers wanting to unionize and not receiving what they’re owed by companies like Sony and I’ve heard Ghost Of Yotei is not good it’s still far away from release and not playing well and it’s smaller in scale than Tsushima with it looking like a last gen game. None of the current first party titles justify the console and the price increase isn’t justified either.
Who’s Neon Koi what did they make? But this won’t be the end a failure like Concord means more closures on the horizon. Not to mention other failures Ragnarok didn’t perform well on PC, Spider-Man 2 hasn’t performed as well as the previous game in the same time frame, and hardware sales are down not to mention the Pro model being more expensive and probably will underperform then Death Stranding 2 in 2025 or later a sequel to a game that already flopped I don’t know why they’d make that and more live service games coming since Jim Ryan said their were like what 20-50 live service games being made by Sony. I have to wonder if TeamAsobi gets shut down next I don’t think Astro Bot set the world on fire and they’d for sure shut down a small team over one of the big ones in America. Does Sony take the risk with Fair Games next or close Haven? Some part of me assumes they look for a buyer for Bungie even if it’s at a loss and Herman Hulst for sure has to be fired next or maybe they wait closer to the end of the generation it’s just this is a really bad look and to fix it will look even worse it shows they appointed and trusted incompetent management and gave them billions of dollars to do so. This is worse than the PSN hack because they 100% made this decision, at least Ken Kutaragi was the father of PlayStation we can give him that for his decisions during PS3 but this is insane and it’s been bad for a long time no matter what people say I won’t forget that boring show with Mark Cerny the first PS5 event technically. Maybe Sony gets out of gaming I mean it doesn’t fit them console gaming and Microsoft is done with it too they could save face and say they want to focus more on Japan and sell PlayStation off to someone like NetEase or Tencent and keep mobile game developers spend more on Aniplex and Crunchyroll because their Sony Pictures box office is also awful with Venom 3 so they might want to sell that off too.
That’s a lie! Maximilian Dood said the game was doing amazing and anyone saying otherwise is a bigot. Concord just relaunched this is fake.
Sony will kill EVO off next before they shut down another studio. EVO doesn’t make the money they want and Endeavor is cutting back too I think Pokimane is ready to move on then again the MrBeast connection hurts her.
The problem is Sony isn’t releasing games instead they make this and they’re following this up with more live service garbage no one wants! Helldivers 2 fell off hard and Space Marine 2 took its place.
Herman Hulst should be fired this was his game he championed!