It may seem hard to believe, but notorious $400 million flop Concord actually had fans. Fans who refused to sit idly by after the game was shuttered in 2024. Three of them, Red, Real, and Gwog, spent a great deal of time working on a way to revive the game. And earlier this week, gameplay footage of Concord running on PC hit the internet. Hosted via invite-only private servers, the game looked to be mostly intact, giving those interested a chance to experience the hero shooter beyond a Secret Level short.
Unfortunately, we can’t show any of the footage because Sony has stepped in. The publisher has made it clear: Concord will stay buried.
Invites Closed, Will the Project Be Canceled?
Despite videos of the Concord revival project being less than a week old, they’ve already disappeared from YouTube. Markscan, a digital asset protection company working for Sony, filed DMCA requests on the offending footage. Not just that, but a dev post on the Concord Delta Discord server provided more reason for fans to worry.
“Due to worrying legal action we’ve decided to pause invites for the time being.”
Beyond that, there’s no news on whether the project has been ended. It may indeed continue with less publicity and stricter criteria for invites. But given the fate of many other fan projects, it’s unlikely Concord will remain resurrected for much longer.
More Ammo for “Stop Killing Games”
Concord’s second death comes during a flash point on the topic of games preservation. Ross Scott’s “Stop Killing Games” initiative grew in prominence earlier this year, with both petitions in the EU and the UK. The topic has generated debate about a game publisher’s obligations to consumers weighed against the technical lifts of preserving games. Scott’s side has plenty of support, with one prominent argument centered on fairness. It may seem like corporate abuse to charge gamers AAA prices, only to take a game offline with no way to access it.
But opponents of Scott argue that allowing gamers to access and modify game files in the name of preservation risks harming developers. This would entail exposing source code and technical data, not to mention the minefield of IP laws that may prove to be an issue. Still, it isn’t just gamers who support the petition. Several developers and studios have come out to support Scott’s initiative, such as Owlcat Studios, Notch, and Randy Pitchford.
The potential shuttering of Concord fan servers provides more ammunition for the pro-consumer side of the argument. Regardless of IP laws, most gamers won’t see the project as a threat to Sony’s bottom line. It’s more likely they’ll see the three fans who worked hard to bring back a game they liked from beyond the grave. Even if Concord was short-lived, it may still prove to be influential in the fight to preserve games.
Sourced from Insider Gaming. For more coverage, check back regularly with our Other Games section.
