Concord VS Elden Ring
▸ WHICH ONE HOLDS UP BETTER
Elden Ring holds up better here: it's rated PLAY IT, while Concord is SKIP IT.
Verdict🔴 SKIP IT🟢 PLAY IT
The RealityConcord launched to unprecedentedly low sales for a project of its size and scale. Sony shut the game down entirely on September 6, 2024 -- just two weeks after its August 2024 launch -- and refunded every copy sold, an almost unheard-of response for a major first-party release. On October 29, 2024, Sony announced the complete closure of Firewalk Studios, the developer, less than two years after acquiring it specifically to make this game. Total investment, including the original acquisition and years of development, has been reported by multiple outlets as exceeding $400 million, making it one of the most expensive single-game failures in PlayStation's history. Sony's own CEO attributed the failure to the competitive first-person-shooter market rather than any single specific cause.Independent critics overwhelmingly confirmed the game delivered on this specific combination. It achieved Metacritic scores of 97 (PS5) and 95 (PC/Xbox Series X|S), and became OpenCritic's highest-rated game of all time with a 97 Top Critic Average. Reviewers specifically praised the open-world execution as living up to comparisons with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild while retaining FromSoftware's signature difficulty and design depth, describing the combination as living up to the pre-release hype 'with casual, almost contemptuous ease.' The game went on to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2022.
SHORT ANSWER
Concord: Concord, marketed as a major long-term PlayStation live-service franchise backed by a $200M+ development deal, was shut down entirely just two weeks after its August 2024 launch, with all copies refunded and the developing studio closed within two months, on a total investment reported to exceed $400 million.
Elden Ring: Elden Ring's pre-release pitch of fusing FromSoftware's Souls-like difficulty with a genuinely open world is confirmed by independent critics: it became OpenCritic's highest-rated game of all time, with reviewers specifically praising the open-world execution as living up to the hype.