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Earlier today, shortly after 1 PM Eastern, Concord's servers went offline. Ryan Ellis, game director at Concord developer Firewalk Studios, had announced the closure of the 5v5 hero shooter in an official PlayStation blog post published earlier this week on September 3, 2024—just 11 days after Concord's release.
Sometimes a great TV tie-in can give a game a popularity boost—The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 both got Netflix bumps—but it doesn't seem likely that an upcoming TV short based on the world of Concord will have the same effect, given that the hero shooter can't even be purchased anymore. Sony and developer Firewalk are taking Concord offline this week after a dismal player turnout; it didn't even crack 1,000 concurrents on Steam.
Last week's Borderlands 4 teaser didn't tell us much about Gearbox's next big co-op looter shooter, but at PAX West today, the creative leads lined up on stage to give us a little more insight—just a little—into what what we can expect from the next billions-of-guns looter shooter.
He was out of town when I visited Firaxis to play Civilization 7 earlier this month, but I did walk past the office from which Civilization creator Sid Meier continues to guide the strategy developer. One example of that guidance, although it came 14 years ago now, was the quick addition of Ghengis Khan as a free Civilization 5 update.
Discord's activity tracking option, which displays the game you're currently running under your name, got an upgrade in the latest patch. Well, it's an upgrade if you don't mind your friends knowing that you've just spent 20 hours in Runescape, or that you've logged in to Final Fantasy 14 every day for the past month. It's not an upgrade if you'd rather keep your gaming habits between you and the vast, non-judgmental universe.
After Morgan tried out the beta for Spectre Divide, a free-to-play shooter with an unusual two-characters-per-player setup, he said it was so fun that he couldn't stop thinking about it.
Our friends at GamesRadar are back with another edition of the Future Games Show at Gamescom, a livestreamed showcase that'll feature over 50 games and another look at Civilization 7, which was revealed with a gameplay trailer at Opening Night Live this week. (I also visited Firaxis earlier this month for a hands-on preview—it looks good!)
Against a wall in the lobby of the Firaxis office, there are two objects: An old leather desk chair, and an equally aged PC and CRT monitor in beautiful '90s beige. These obviously aren't just any old bits of retro junk. They're the kinds of relics game history archivists dream of, given how much has been lost over the years to bankruptcies, acquisitions, and carelessness.