In brief: Concord, the Sony-published team-based hero shooter from Firewalk Studios, saw its early access free open beta end yesterday, and the numbers don’t look good – at least not on the PC. It peaked at just 2,388 concurrent players, with off-peak lows of almost 500.
The Overwatch-like, live service game Concord received an impressive cinematic trailer last month, with many people noting the Guardians of the Galaxy (“when ordered from Temu”) vibe.
Most reviewers’ early opinions of Concord are that it’s good, if not brilliant. PC Gamer was especially praising, noting that it was closer to Call of Duty than Overwatch, and that it was “impressive” and “very fun.”
But it seems the mostly positive response didn’t translate to player numbers during the recent free open beta that lasted from July 18 to July 21. According to SteamDB, concurrent player numbers peaked on Friday at 2,388, which isn’t what Sony would have wanted to see. They continued to fall from that point, reaching a low of just 515 on Sunday.
It’s possible that Concord’s open beta attracted significantly more people on PlayStation; Sony doesn’t share player data for its platform, but it’s hard to imagine many more taking part.
There are several reasons for the apathy toward Concord. The hero shooter genre is a packed and competitive market, and the fact it’s a $40 game, as opposed to being free-to-play like so many others, makes Concord an even harder sell.
Sony will hope that Concord can somehow emulate the success of another one of its dual-platform multiplayer games: Helldivers 2. That title brought in millions of players on Steam and PlayStation 5 within just 30 days of launch and managed to reach a daily active user count comparable to those of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Apex Legends in April.
Concord launches on August 23. It’s never a good sign when a game’s open beta isn’t very popular, but it doesn’t always mean the full release will be a flop. We’ll find out for certain in just over a month.