Concord, the live-service shooter from Firewalk Studios, flopped right out of the gate, sparking memes, refunds, and some very awkward investor calls. Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki even admitted they’d need ‘better checks’ before greenlighting future projects. But now, a number of players dubbed Bungie’s Marathon revival ‘Concord 2.0.’ All thanks to its questionable visual choices and ditching the narrative focus of the 1994 trilogy to chase the overcrowded PvP subgenre. Nevertheless, one ex-Concord developer would like you to give it a chance.
Stephan Williams, a veteran VFX artist who previously worked on Concord, WildStar, Destiny, and Call of Duty, popped into the r/Marathon subreddit. Under the name -MrSpug-, he gently tried to set the record straight for Bungie’s new pet project.
Williams admitted the Firewalk team poured everything into a game that simply didn’t connect. “Concord failed to inspire players, and the messages was heard loud and clear,” he wrote. “It was gut wrenching to see our project fail, and be the laughing stock of many online.”
“I am not asking for pity, or even sympathy because, after all this is the name of the game, you win or lose. […] I took a chance, and lost.”
But Marathon? That’s not their project — after all, Firewalk was disbanded just two months after its debut. Gamers shouldn’t project their Concord trauma onto Bungie’s upcoming PvP extraction shooter.
Williams praised the Marathon devs for their bravery in trying something new for the studio, visually and gameplay-wise. “I commend them for taking a chance, trying something foreign to them, that isn’t proven, nor guaranteed to succeed. It takes a lot of courage.”
He’s definitely not wrong. Bungie’s Marathon revival looks wildly different from anything the studio has done before. Despite some iffy sci-fi armor design, the art style invokes high contrast minimalism similar to Mirror’s Edge.
Williams closed his heartfelt plea with, “TLDR: I worked on Concord, and did my best. We came up short, please don’t punish others for our mistakes. We are all human beings who are trying to create something special, and Marathon is no different.”
Not everyone replying on the thread is convinced with his optimism, though. Still, he believes Bungie is capable of delivering ‘banger DLC’ of ‘pure PVE bliss.’ Basically, it is turning the new Marathon into its Fortnite, just in the opposite way. Let’s give this one a fair shot- at least until the game actually launched.
