Sony has taken the unusual step of erasing every trace of Concord from players’ PS5 consoles, stoking fears of an all-digital future yet again. Concord’s situation has been an unprecedented one, starting with its closure within two weeks of launch. But this particular move has caused widespread concern.
Is Concord’s complete erasure from PS5 consoles something to worry about?
Journalists Jordan Middler and Stephen Totilo sparked this conversation on X, stressing that they have never encountered a situation before where a publisher completely removed a game and everything to do with it from players’ digital libraries after servers shut down, regardless of whether the game functions or not.
Totilo further pointed out that not only does Concord’s login screen not load anymore, his in-game captures are now classified as “Other” in PS5’s media gallery. I just checked my media gallery to see if this is indeed an outlier, and can confirm that my capture folders still carry their respective game titles even in cases where I’ve deleted a game and its save data from my console.
In other words, Sony seems to be erasing Concord from its own database, which makes me think that it has no plans to bring the game back.
On sites like PSNProfiles, Reddit, and X, a number of players have expressed concerns about the level of control Sony has over consoles connected to the internet. Some pointed out that despite P.T. being pulled, it wasn’t completely erased from players’ libraries and consoles.
While I understand these concerns, I don’t think Concord’s erasure is anything to worry about. It’s a multiplayer game that no longer functions, with players having automatically been issued full refunds for their digital copies. Owning a physical copy doesn’t change anything here.
Unless Concord somehow still functions off a disc, this is a nothingburger, albeit an unusual one.
