As reported by The Game Post, the team behind the community project announced their latest updates via Discord server, saying, “After a long time of reverse engineering [and] server development, we just managed to play a match of Concord! The project is still WIP, it’s playable, but buggy. Once our servers are fully set up, we’ll begin doing some private playtesting, if anyone here wants to join those playtests, let me know (include what region/time zone you are in for convenience).”
Following this exciting news, videos and images of the project in action began to spread online. Unfortunately, though, the fun didn’t last long: Sony has started issuing DMCA takedowns of any gameplay videos on YouTube showing the custom Concord project. The leaders behind the rebuilt game are aware of the potential legal issues, saying they can only provide access to those who had legitimately bought the game in order to avoid giving access to “copyrighted files” without discretion.
“I know this sucks for people who got forcefully refunded, but lawyers are most likely already watching everything we do and I want to ensure this project stays as legal as we realistically can do. We will be removing any posts containing links to copyrighted files,” the team said.
Invitations for playtesting have now been completely paused however, as the team has shared they’ve received “worrying legal action.” It’s an unfortunate situation given Sony’s clear lack of intentions in ever planning to rerelease Concord in any capacity. The least that could be done would be to allow the game to be preserved in some way.
