Has ‘Concord’ Scared Sony Straight On Its PlayStation Live Service Ambitions?

This week, Sony reportedly cancelled two more live service games, a God of War multiplayer game from Bluepoint and an unknown live game from Bend. They join a pile of other cancelled live service projects from The Last of Us Online to Spider-Man: The Great Web.

The proposed idea here is that Concord, what has now become one of the biggest video game failures of all time, has scared Sony straight in terms of its live-service ambitions. Previously, it boasted about moving forward with 12 live titles over the next year or two, but among those only one released game has been a big hit, Helldivers 2, a co-op PvE game, while others either have not made a mark, were cancelled before release or arrived like a nuclear bomb obliterating faith in Sony’s plans in this genre (that would be Concord).

Insider Jeff Grubb says that the failure of Concord has now caused Sony “reevaluate” every games-as-service project they have in motion, and as such, we now have moves like these recent cancellations of games that had not even been officially announced. One thing to remember about Concord was that early insider reporting was that Sony had a lot of faith in Concord being a significant new IP for the PlayStation brand going forward, hence why we saw things like elaborately planned-out seasons and narratives, and even a purchased spot in Amazon Prime Video’s Secret Level series (which ironically ended up airing after the game was already dead).

I am certainly willing to believe that Concord has raised alarms over at Sony in terms of its live projects. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars and years of development to release a game that was shut down in two weeks is again, like nothing this industry has ever seen. But when your game cannot even break 700 concurrent players on Steam at launch, this is where you end up.

But these issues seemed like they were in place before Concord ever hit, and even to a major extent. The Last of Us Online took years of Naughty Dog development before it was cancelled, no doubt delaying bread-and-butter single player projects like the new Intergalactic and the likely Last of Us Part 3. Spider-Man 2 launched without The Great Web, which was no doubt a significant part of the release plan at one point before being axed.

Now, it seems that Guerilla Games is working on at least one Horizon Zero Dawn live service project, which would be the fourth major single player franchise making that leap, but as we’ve discussed, all those other attempts have failed.

Of course, we can recalled that previous multiplayer spins on single player games have worked, like PvP The Last of Us Factions and Ghost of Tsushima’s co-op Legends mode. The difference is that those were specific modes made without the trendy “live service” format attached to them with endless ongoing seasons and content. Now, we’re seeing a game like Elden Ring do the same thing with the upcoming standalone Nightreign co-op game, but again, that is not live. So multiplayer modes in single player franchises can work. Live games are another story, much more expensive to make and a much harder sell to players.

One of the biggest Sony launches in 2025 (well, allegedly in 2025) is Bungie’s Marathon, a new spin on the extraction shooter genre which does not have any AAA entries at this scale. This is Bungie of Halo and Destiny fame, both hugely successful shooter franchises and the studio is known for some of the best gunplay in the industry.

This seems like a sure thing for Sony, but it’s also not going to be Sony’s alone, as part of Bungie’s acquisition deal is that its games are going fully third party, meaning PlayStation, PC and Xbox. Still, it could be a much needed with for PlayStation live services. Or it could be another miss, and if they can’t make a Bungie PvP game work, what are they even doing in this genre? Because right now, no one seems to know.

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