The hero shooter from Firewalk Studios Treatywhich launched on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC on August 23, will be pulled from sale on Tuesday and taken offline later this week following its disastrous launch, Sony announced on its website. PlayStation Blog. Players who bought Treaty will be refunded, the studio said, while it “explores options” for the game and “determines the best path forward.”
Ryan Ellis, game director at Firewalk Studios, announced Treaty‘s fate in a message to players, writing that “aspects of the game and our initial launch did not turn out as we intended.”
“Treaty fans — we’ve been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Treaty on PlayStation 5 and PC and would like to thank everyone who has joined us on our journey aboard the Northstar,” Ellis wrote. “Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us.”
“While many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch did not resonate as we intended. As a result, we have decided to take the game offline as of September 6, 2024, and explore options, including ones that will better reach our players.”
Players who purchased the PS5 will receive a full refund via their original payment method, regardless of whether the game was purchased on PlayStation Store or via PlayStation Direct. Players who purchased the game on PC will also receive a refund via their original payment method.
Sony and Firewalk launched Treaty to lukewarm responses last month; the game received negative attention for its shockingly low concurrent player count on Steam, where fewer than 700 people played the game during launch weekend. Those numbers dropped even further in the weeks following the launch, according to SteamDB. On Tuesday, about 30 people were playing Concord at once, a poor indicator of the health of the game. A recent report from IGN said the game has sold an estimated 25,000 copies since launch.
However, the game’s poor reception was noted long before its launch. TreatyThe game’s dual-multiplayer beta tests were also sparsely populated, and the game received increasing attention due to the fact that its player base dwindled from one beta weekend to the next.
Treaty received mixed reviews from critics who complained about the game’s lack of flashy features, its $40 price tag in a sea of free-to-play competitors, and its bland characters. Treaty lets players take control of 16 Freegunners, a diverse group of aliens, robots, and space mercenaries, each with their own special abilities, in 5v5 multiplayer matches. The game was the debut title for Firewalk, which acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment until 2023.