Concord game director reportedly steps down as Firewalk developers fear layoffs or a possible closure

A Kotaku report says Concord game director Ryan Ellis has stepped down from his position at Firewalk Studios, and will take on a "support role" instead.

Three sources told the site that Ellis, a former director on Destiny 2 who left Bungie in 2016 and founded Firewalk in 2018, announced his stepdown last week, shortly after Sony took the game offline in order to "explore options" that will "better reach our players." The move came less than two weeks after Concord launched into near-complete disinterest, achieving an all-time concurrent player count on Steam of just 697.

"Ryan deeply believed in that project and bringing players together through the joy in it," one former developer told Kotaku. "Regardless of there being things that could have been done differently throughout development ... he’s a good human, and full of heart."

Concord's spectacular flameout was shocking not just for its speed, but because Sony had so much confidence in the game that it locked down a publishing deal for it in 2021 and bought Firewalk outright in 2023, before Concord was even announced, much less released. Yet while its $40 price tag is widely cited as one of the major reasons for Concord's failure, it also just wasn't really a great game: "An underbaked, overpriced, and dated hero shooter," we said in our 45% review: "It is fine in a marketplace where fine does not and has not cut it for years."

While there's some speculation that Concord could return, possibly as a free-to-play game, staff at Firewalk are reportedly pessimistic, and some have been asked to explore pitches for all-new projects, completely separate from Concord. Naturally, there's also worry about widespread layoffs, and possibly an outright closure of the studio.

That would not be unprecedented: Sony-owned Bungie recently laid off 220 employees in the name of "portfolio optimization," and given that Firewalk is a single-game studio, it appears especially vulnerable to cuts or closure. I've reached out to Sony for comment and will update if I receive a reply.