In the lead-up to Amazon's upcoming Secret Level series that will turn 15 games into animated shorts, producer Tim Miller sat down with Rolling Stone to discuss one of the most infamous entries, Concord, and how its downfall may have affected the show.
"There was no nicer, more invested group of developers than the team on Concord," Miller says. "I honestly don’t understand why it didn’t work. I know that they were trying to do the best they could, and they were a talented group of artists, so I feel terrible for that."
Players and critics have been dissecting why Concord didn't work out before Sony even announced that it was shutting down servers. I spent some time messing around with game modes and flicking through the cosmetics and customisations that Concord had to offer before it went offline, and throughout all of it, my biggest problem was that it was just ok. But for $40/ £35, Concord was never going to survive by just being a half-decent shooter in such a flooded market.
Helldivers 2 managed to do well even with an upfront payment of $40/ £35, but that's because it offered players more than just the ability to unlock cosmetics for free; it gave people a new experience that they couldn't get elsewhere. But playing Concord, on the other hand, felt indistinguishable from other hero shooters.
"I don’t feel bad that it’s a part of the show because I think it’s an episode that turned out really well, and you can kind of see the potential of this world and the characters," Miller says. "If it’s the remaining vestige of that product, I hope the developers feel that it’s in some way worthy, just a little bit, of the blood, sweat, and tears they put into it."
