Let’s take stock of the possible paths that open up for PS5 (and PS6), after two important signals that have arrived in recent weeks.
Concord recently launched, and was delisted in record time, after a terrible beta. It may have been a promising release, but the news has rocked the gaming industry. After all, Redfall may have been a controversial launch for Xbox, but it still achieved nearly three times the concurrent players on Steam than Concord. The fact that a major platformer has such a publicly ridiculed release is big news, yet it was swept away by the release of Astro Bot.
PlayStation fans have been calling Astro Bot a Game of the Year contender and one of the best first-party titles in years. We like Astro Bot, though not as much as most critics, and we think it’s a good game, but it’s a bit of a departure from the norm for PS5: it’s not a third-person action-shooter hybrid with skill trees and a crafting system, which makes it pretty much the holy grail of PlayStation’s first-party lineup. So, are we going to see more of this success story or more Concords?
Sony initially had 12 – that’s right, twelve – service games in the pipeline to be released in a relatively short period of time. We’ve since had confirmation that a ofThe Last of Us multiplayer title has been canceled, and only six of these live services are on track to release by March 2026. Two of those were released in 2024, thanks to the huge success of Helldivers 2 and the monumental disaster of Concord.
The Monumental Disaster of Concord —
Helldivers 2 has caused a stir, and after just a quick playthrough you can see why. It’s unlike any other third-person shooter, the gameplay is limited to online co-op – a fantastic decision – and the tone of the action always manages to remain slapstick, no matter how intense the matches get. There’s no other service game quite like it, and that’s why Helldivers 2 is still going strong, even after Sony tried to sabotage it by forcing users to use a PSN account.
Concord, meanwhile, has been plagued by comparisons to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Blizzard’s Overwatch since it was first revealed. The gaming world let out a collective groan at the words “5v5 multiplayer FPS” after a nifty debut cinematic, a beta was held shortly thereafter, and even when it opened up to all PS+ players the servers felt semi-deserted. The game was dead at birth, and somehow everyone except Sony knew it. Not even a roadmap can save a situation like this.
Concord marked the debut of Firewalk Studios, founded in 2018, and the game was conceived about two years before. So we’re talking about at least six years of hands-on, hard work for a game that was available for just two weeks. Sony only acquired Firewalk in April 2023so it might not seem like a monumental investment of time for the publisher, but for the studio team this was the worst possible scenario, after six years of work.
Sony plans ahead, but manages to be a reactive company. They were quick to capitalize/destroy the success of Helldivers 2 by imposing PSN accounts (limiting the game’s availability globally), they didn’t hesitate to kill Concord when things weren’t going well in the early days, they killed The Last of Us multiplayer game after it drained resources, and they delayed six of the aforementioned live service games when things weren’t going well. Now all Sony has to do is go all in on the games that people are actually asking for.
The Low-Cost Success of Astro Bot —
Let’s take a step back: Astro Bot is a game that Team Asobi made in about four years, if we assume that development began after the release of Astro’s Playroom at the launch of the PS5 in 2020. With a Metacritic score of 94, it sits right next to God of War: Ragnarok in terms of critics. Again, these are not signs to be underestimated: Astro Bot was such a refreshing release from Sony that it managed to erase the failure of Concord from the public consciousness. With all of this in mind, it’s time for the Japanese company’s executives to recalibrate their strategy for the future.
Instead of foisting a suite of 12 service games on a market that’s increasingly tired of those games—or the remaining nine—let’s change things up. Why doesn’t Sony make quality single-player experiences? They don’t even have to be open world, RPGs, or shooters, as Astro Bot demonstrates. If you just make a good game that feels a little different from everything else out there, people will want it, and the consoles will sell themselves.
PS4 dominated the last generation thanks to Sony’s Oscar-winning slate of single-player games, and while we’re sick of them, they sold consoles. They made the PS4 an essential product: Call of Duty and Overwatch were just more games you could play if you wanted. You bought the console for those premium experiences you couldn’t get anywhere else. Let’s be honest: if the PS5 Pro actually had a new game to show off how much better it is from a performance standpoint, rather than an updated port of a PS4 title everyone’s already played, people would be more willing to buy it. Instead, it’s just an $800 console with the same games.
We don’t know how long it will take for the Astro Bot reveal to actually have an impact on the games we see from Sony this generation – if we see any effects at all this generation – but Astro Bot is proof that gamers are willing to play games with unique art styles that don’t fit neatly into one of the three established AAA genres (i.e. shooters, open-world RPGs, and third-person action. Sometimes all three at once).
Sony, what are you doing now? —
There were dozens of articles online bemoaning Sony’s service game strategy when it was announced, and those writers may be feeling pretty smug right now. The question is: is it too late for Sony to change gear, or will we have to watch nine more Concords drown in the PlayStation Store swamp?
Written by Dave Aubrey for GLHF
