Sony cracks down on Concord’s fan-made servers

According to Ars Technica, a group of coders partially revived online gameplay for Sony’s defunct team-based shooter Concord through a project called Concord Delta, which reverse-engineered the game’s server API to get functional multiplayer matches running. The project required legitimate PC copies of the game, which only sold about 25,000 copies across PC and PS5 before being shut down last summer just two weeks after launch. Developer Red posted YouTube videos showing the playable but buggy gameplay over the weekend, warning about their “horrible aim” after spending so much time on reverse engineering. Those videos were quickly taken down due to copyright claims from MarkScan Enforcement, a company that frequently works with Sony on DMCA requests. While Sony hasn’t contacted the Concord Delta team directly, the takedowns prompted them to pause new Discord server invites “due to worrying legal action.”

Sony’s legal playbook

Here’s the thing: Sony’s playing this exactly by the book. They’re not going after the server code itself yet – they’re targeting the public evidence that it exists. It’s a classic escalation strategy. First, you take down the videos that show your IP being used in ways you don’t control. Then you see if the project quietly dies. If it doesn’t, you send the cease-and-desist letters.

And they’ve got plenty of precedent. EA killed a Battlefield fan server project with nearly a million accounts back in 2017. Activision went after Call of Duty fan clients in 2023. Blizzard famously shut down classic WoW servers before launching their own official ones. The legal reasoning is always the same: if you don’t protect your IP, you risk losing control of it entirely.

Why this hurts

But man, this stings for the tiny community that actually bought and liked Concord. We’re talking about a game that sold maybe 25,000 copies total. The people still messing with it months after it got yanked offline? They’re the superfans. The ones who didn’t take the refund. Now they’re watching their last chance to actually play the game they paid for get threatened with legal action.

It’s not like these fan servers are competing with an active product. Sony clearly has zero interest in supporting Concord officially – they shut the whole thing down and refunded everyone who asked. So what’s the harm in letting a few dozen die-hards keep the lights on? Basically, it comes down to setting precedent. If they let Concord slide, what about their next failed live service game?

The Nintendo contrast

Now look at Nintendo’s approach with projects like Pretendo Network and WiiLink. They’re restoring online functionality for consoles Nintendo hasn’t supported in years. And Nintendo seems to be looking the other way. Maybe because those projects are about preserving history rather than reviving recent commercial failures?

Or maybe Sony just has different risk tolerance. They’re deep in the live service game business now, and they can’t have players thinking fan servers are an option when their official ones go dark. It’s corporate protectionism, pure and simple. But it feels particularly harsh when we’re talking about a game that barely had a chance to exist in the first place.

What’s next

So where does this leave Concord Delta? Probably in limbo. The developers are playing it safe by closing off new access, which is smart. But the cat’s out of the bag – the reverse engineering work is done. The knowledge exists. Even if the public project gets shut down, someone will keep it alive privately.

The real question is whether Sony will escalate further. Will they go after the Discord server itself? The actual server code? Or will they decide that taking down the videos was enough to make their point? Given how hard Concord flopped, you’d think they’d have bigger fish to fry. But corporate legal departments don’t always operate on common sense.