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As its new hero shooter Concord prepares to go offline, PlayStation is reportedly feeling bullish about one of its next multiplayer endeavors.
PlayStation announced Fairgames (Fairgame$) last summer as the online shooter about robbing filthy rich corpos, all while competing with other merc teams to see who can hoover up the most cash, ironically coming from Haven Studios and billion dollar company Sony. The game first raised eyebrows because Haven Studios is led by Jade Raymond, an early producer on Assassin's Creed who was instrumental in the stealthy-stabby series' massive success.
Confidence in Sony's recent live service push was severely shaken this past week, however, as PlayStation's new hero shooter Concord has absolutely crashed and burned. After eight years in development and one of the saddest PC debuts in years, Concord will be taken offline later this week, with refunds going out to everyone who bought the game on both PC and PS5.
Despite the massive blunder, the publisher is reportedly pretty confident in its upcoming heist 'em up. GamesIndustry.biz's Christopher Dring recently spoke about internal reactions to Fairgames in the outlet's Microcast podcast, saying that he's "heard good things about Jade Raymond's game."
"I know people are a bit sceptical about it, but I've heard that internal chatter is very positive about it," Dring continued, before speculating that Fairgames is one of the live service games that PlayStation is really "focusing on" to "support and try and make work."
Fairgames does have a few advantages over Concord, in fairness. For one, it's not chasing the hero shooter train that left the station almost a decade ago - Fairgames is more akin to an extraction heist shooter, and its biggest competition, Payday 3, is still recovering from a troublesome launch. It can also learn from Concord's mistakes by slowly building a community - and building the game alongside that community - via playtests, rather than expecting a massive pool of players to show up day-one based on expensive marketing promises. That day-one boom works for games that suddenly go viral, but virality isn't something can really bet on.
Regardless, it's worth noting that internal chatter around Concord was likely positive as well since Sony actually acquired developer Firewalk Studios before it had even released a single game - just as it acquired Haven Studios to lead its charge into the live service playground.
