Two weeks after launch, Sony shooter Harmony goes offline and presents refunds

We hardly knew ye —

Workforce-based shooter eight years within the making had simply 25,000 estimated gross sales.

Kyle Orland
– Sep 3, 2024 6:26 pm UTC

This team-based FPS fight scene was apparently too acquainted to draw all that many gamers to <em src= — Enlarge / This team-based FPS fight scene was apparently too acquainted to draw all that many gamers to *Harmony*.

Sony

Sony’s team-based on-line shooter Harmony has been faraway from sale and will probably be taken offline on Friday, September 6, simply two weeks after its August 23 launch. Firewalk Studios Sport Director Ryan Ellis mentioned in an announcement Tuesday that writer Sony will provide refunds to all gamers who bought the sport on PC or PlayStation 5.

Sony could not have to pay out that many refunds. GameDiscoverCo analyst Simon Carless informed IGN final week that he estimated an underwhelming 25,000 complete gross sales for the sport throughout PS5 and PC. Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, in the meantime, mentioned that simply 0.2 % of all lively PS5 gamers have been taking part in the sport final Monday, making it the 147th most-played title for that day.

The Steam model of the sport peaked at effectively underneath 700 gamers simply after launch, in line with SteamDB monitoring. On PlayStation, in style opt-in trophy monitoring web site PSNProfiles logged simply over 1,300 gamers who owned Harmony, a comparatively small displaying in comparison with in style latest releases like Star Wars Outlaws (4,300 PSNProfiles homeowners) and Black Fantasy: Wukong (16,000 PSNProfiles-tracked homeowners).

“Whereas many qualities of the expertise resonated with gamers, we additionally acknowledge that different facets of the sport and our preliminary launch didn’t land the way in which we’d supposed,” Ellis wrote.

What went incorrect?

Suffice it to say, this fast shutdown isn’t what Firewalk or Sony envisioned for the sport. Just below a month in the past, Ellis was speaking up Harmony‘s impending launch by teasing a “main content material drop” deliberate for October and the long-term potential for customized crew buildouts.

“We see launch as just the start,” Ellis mentioned within the August promotional publish. “The start of not solely the imaginative and prescient we’ve set out for Harmony, but in addition the start of how we help and develop the sport with our gamers.”

Harmony was the primary recreation from Firewalk Studios, which shaped in 2018 earlier than being acquired by Sony simply final 12 months. The sport has been in improvement for round eight years, in line with lead character designer Jon Weisnewski, which means work on the title began when Blizzard’s Overwatch was a scorching new idea somewhat than the growing older progenitor of a crowded style.

Harmony was teased at Sony’s PlayStation Showcase final Could and was first proven in a tough playable kind this Could. By August’s launch, although, it was clear there was little market urge for food for one more dwell service group shooter that did not convey a lot new to the desk. Harmony was solely beneficial by 24 % of reviewers tracked by OpenCritic and is sitting at a particularly underwhelming rating of 65 on Metacritic.

Harmony‘s destiny brings to thoughts that of Amazon’s Crucible, one other newcomer that discovered it exhausting to discover a place in a crowded shooter market. That recreation managed to limp alongside for simply six months earlier than being shut down, although it was delisted from Steam effectively earlier than that demise.

Regardless of Harmony‘s fast shutdown, the door has been left open only a crack for a possible revival sooner or later. Ellis writes that Firewalk and Sony will “decide the most effective path forward” and “discover choices, together with these that can higher attain our gamers” sooner or later. Maybe one other more and more frequent pivot to a free-to-play mannequin is in Harmony‘s future?