It’s a sign of the times: live service shooter Concord took an enormous eight years to develop. The tidbit was confirmed on X (or Twitter) by lead character designer Jon Weisnewski. He wrote: “Today Firewalk Studios launched Concord. The game has been in development for around eight years and I’ve been there for almost five of them. We don’t get a lot of Launch Days in our careers so today is special for a ton of reasons. Oblige me some good vibes today.”
One thing perhaps pointing out here is that eight years ago, in 2016, Blizzard had just released Overwatch, which quickly became one of the biggest games in the world.
Still, eight years obviously sounds like a long time, but it’s worth noting that the title was likely little more than a concept for the first phase of its development. The developer then had to deal with the disruption of COVID and lockdowns, before eventually signing a deal with Sony, getting acquired, and launching the game. It’s out now in Early Access, with the full release scheduled to follow tomorrow, on 23rd August.