Summary
Concordwasan unprecedented failurefor PlayStation. It sounds incredibly harsh, but never before has a first-party live-service game been shut down less than two weeks after its launch. While some may argue that the writing was on the wall forConcordthe moment its reveal trailer dropped, that doesn’t make its shutdown any less tragic for the hardworking developers, some of whom apparently spent around eight years working on the game.
A heavycriticism ofConcordwas that it felt too generic in terms of character design, gameplay, and art style, but that doesn’t mean that its developers didn’t try to instill as much passion as possible into the project. This passion led to a few diamonds scattered among the rubble inConcord, and the game’sGalactic Guidewas certainly one of those, delivering pages upon pages of engaging, intricate lore that gaveConcord’s universe a surprising amount of depth. But the Galactic Guide has gone down with the rest of the ship, and its disappointing fateis probably sealed.
Concord’s Galactic Guide Has Left a Tragic Legacy
Concord’s Galactic Guide Was Packed With Interesting Lore Tidbits
Available viaConcord’s main menu, the Galactic Guide presented players with an overhead map of the titular Concord galaxy. Players could freely navigate their cursor through the galaxy, highlighting planets, space lanes, and other important points of interest. Each and every planet in the Galactic Guide had a page of text explaining key parts of its lore, such as its background and role in the galaxy’s economy. As players continued to play on the planet’s maps, they’d unlock more pages of lore in the Galactic Guide, and the same was true for the game’s playable Freegunners, who would appear near their home planets on the map.
Though it could be overwhelming at first,Concord’s Galactic Guidewas packed to the brim with genuinely interesting lore tidbits. Players could learn about the Tempest disaster, a space storm that appeared out of nowhere decades ago and tore the galaxy in two, or the crew of the Implacable, the first Freegunner ship that blazed a mighty trail, or the tyrannical Guild, a merchant organization that rules the galaxy through coercion and control.
After a while, these puzzle pieces would come together to form a complete picture ofConcord’s story, and it was a surprisingly exciting one. For fans ofWild West-inspired Sci-Fi franchises likeFirefly,Concord’s Freegunners vs. The Guild story felt familiar but fresh. There were also plenty of intriguing morsels for fans of Hard Sci-Fi, likeDuneandStar Trek, such as the planet of Silo which The Guild threw an asteroid into and proceeded to build a Spire that extends from the planet’s surface to space, acting as an ominous reminder to the rest of the galaxy of its power.
Concord’s Galactic Guide Is Probably Gone Forever
It was clear that a lot of thought and effort went into creatingConcord’s lore, but with so much of it being hidden away in the Galactic Guide, many players would have missed it completely. And withConcord’s servers having been shut down, there’s now no way to access the Galactic Guide. Theoretically, the Galactic Guide could returnifConcordever reemerged, but the likelihood of that happening anytime soon isn’t too high, with the game’s infamy simply being too high to risk another failed launch.
