Sony’s Concord Revived by Fan-Made Servers

A remarkable community-driven effort has successfully revived Sony’s defunct hero shooter Concord through custom fan-made servers, breathing new life into a game many considered lost forever. This unofficial resurrection allows players to experience full matches once more, despite the title’s official servers being permanently shut down shortly after its troubled launch.

Originally positioned as Sony’s next major live-service venture, Concord arrived in August 2024 as a 5v5 hero shooter developed by Firewalk Studios for PlayStation 5 and PC. However, the game failed to capture a sustainable player base almost immediately. Critics pointed to its unclear identity and lack of distinguishing features, leading to dismal review scores. Within mere weeks of its release, Sony made the unprecedented decision to discontinue the game entirely, issuing full refunds to purchasers and taking its online infrastructure offline. The situation worsened when Firewalk Studios itself was closed, cementing Concord’s status as one of the most rapid and severe live-service failures in recent memory.

Despite these setbacks, a dedicated group of community developers refused to let the game disappear completely. Working behind the scenes for months, they engaged in extensive reverse engineering and server reconstruction efforts. Their persistence has now yielded a significant breakthrough: custom servers are operational, and Concord is playable again.

The project is spearheaded by developers using the aliases Red, openwizard, and gwog. In a recent announcement shared within their Discord community, Red confirmed that Concord is officially running on these newly built custom servers. This achievement stems from openwizard’s complete reconstruction of the game’s backend API, combined with Red’s deep reverse engineering work on Concord’s core systems. Additional critical support came from gwog, who helped resolve several major technical obstacles during development.

The team has successfully restored essential game functions, including the main menu, character loading sequences, matchmaking processes, and complete Clash Point matches. To demonstrate their progress, they initially released gameplay footage showing Concord booting up and running smoothly on their custom infrastructure. While the experience remains somewhat buggy and is still considered a work in progress, the mere fact that it functions at all represents a substantial technical accomplishment, particularly since the game was never designed to operate outside Sony’s official ecosystem.

However, this revival has not gone unnoticed by the original rights holders. Sony has begun issuing DMCA takedown notices targeting YouTube videos showcasing Concord running on these custom servers. At least two primary demonstration videos from the development team have been removed by MarkScan, a firm frequently employed for Sony’s copyright enforcement activities.

Red’s original Discord announcement detailed the journey: “After a long time of reverse engineering and server development, we just managed to play a match of Concord! The project remains a work in progress, it’s playable but buggy. Once our servers are fully configured, we’ll commence private playtesting. Credits go to open_wizard for recreating the entire backend API and gwog for assisting with reverse engineering and resolving major issues.”

This development raises fascinating questions about game preservation and community dedication in an era where always-online titles can vanish permanently. The determination of these developers demonstrates how passionate communities can reclaim digital experiences that corporations have abandoned, though such efforts inevitably navigate complex legal territories regarding intellectual property and copyright law.

(Source: The Game Post)