Internal Testing For Fairgame$ Reported To Be Favored, But Is That Enough After Concord?

History took place upon PlayStation recently. For those out of the loop, Sony’s first major in-house live-service title Concord launched and did not take long to be shut down. After only selling 25,000 units across console & PC, Sony decided to shutdown its lobbies come Friday September 6th. What’s more interesting is that PlayStation still has more plans for this business model moving forward.

Although efforts like Naughty Dog’s Factions II is no more, Bungie is currently occupied with Marathon. Being an established IP decades before, many anticipate the new project to be more welcomed than Concord. However, Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios is also working on its next game as well – Fairgame$. Similar to Marathon, the game since its announcement only shared a cinematic trailer with no revealing information on the gameplay.

And now amid the questioning direction PlayStation is heading from what occurred for Concord, how will Fairgame$ perform? Well, at least internally, it is showing to be a fond experience from those that played so far. According to gamesindustry.biz head Chris Dring, Raymond’s first PlayStation exclusive is showing to be in the right direction.

“I’ve heard good things about Jade Raymond’s game, is it Fairgame$, I’ve heard good things about that,” Dring said. “So there’s a few, I know people who are a bit skeptical about the trailer, but I’ve heard internal chatter is very positive about it. So there are these other projects that I assume that the ones that they’re focusing on are the ones that they’re going to go for. They’re going to put out there, they’re going to support, and try and make work.”

Gathered from Raymond’s past, she has shown to offer successful projects when at other companies. With her time at both Ubisoft as well as Electronic Arts, Raymond delivered Assassin’s Creed & Watch Dogs alongside Star Wars Battlefront II respectively. And although she did earn a leading role at Stadia, that was short lived before being a PlayStation Studio in 2021.

But the elephant in the room is how will this be different from Concord? Although retention never kicked off for the hero shooter, there was praise in how the game played even during its beta. Our review for Concord mentioned “the core mechanics are solid, and when played with a well-coordinated team, the game can deliver satisfying tactical moments.”

Truly, that will be seen with how Sony decides to offer Fairgame$ to its platform. Most notably about Concord was its initial presentation. With a cryptic teaser cinematic, it was followed-up with a reveal years later with a small window to its release. Offering little to engage users nor propping any unique characteristics left the game with the fate we know now.

Are you confident in Fairgame$ or is it too late?

Source: ResetEra