Sony has closed two PlayStation developers, Neon Koi, and Concord developer Firewalk Studios. The news was confirmed in an internal email from Sony CEO Hermen Hulst that was subsequently shared to the official Sony blog.
The email states that the company seeks to “consistently evaluate our games portfolio and status of our projects to ensure we are meeting near and long-term business priorities.” The decision to close the two studios reportedly arose from “ongoing efforts to strengthen” the business.
Neon Koi was working on an unannounced mobile action game, which the statement confirms will “not be moving forward” at this time.
Firewalk Studios has been shuttered as a result of the poor reception of its debut title Concord, which was released back in August. The game had been in development for eight years and was shut down just two weeks after launch, with refunds given to affected players.
In a September PlayStation blog post, game director Ryan Ellis said that the studio would “explore options, including those that will better reach our players” – potentially suggesting a future relaunch. Now we know that this will not be the case as this latest communication states that “after much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio”.
The email then goes on to say that Sony “will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.” This could indicate that there are even more live-service projects on the horizon.
Firewalk Studios has since shared a goodbye message on social media, “signing off one last time” and praising the team’s “truly world-class” talent.
There is no official word on the number of staff affected by this decision, though a new report by Bloomberg claims that a total of 210 people will be losing their jobs across both Neon Koi and Firewalk Studios.
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dash.wood@futurenet.com (Dashiell Wood)
