 Hey there lads and ladies, it is Petrifying Pumpkins here and today I am bringing you a very sad video about Firewall, about First Contact Entertainment, happened a few days ago, I'm sure many of you know it by now, but First Contact Entertainment as a business, as a studio, as a developer are no more basically, at least by the end of the year, which is just a few days away now, they will be closing their doors, they will be out of business, the people working there will be looking for new jobs, I hope that they all find them by the way, and the future of Firewall Ultra is completely up in the air, we don't know what's going to happen, we don't know where we go next, so basically on the 22nd of December, just a few days ago, Frank, who you might know as the community manager and he also, I think he transitioned into a different role later on in the studio, he put out a twist, Trevor put out a twist and of course, Hess Barber himself, the CEO of First Contact Entertainment also put out a twist, they all confirmed us, interestingly the official First Contact Entertainment Twitter account didn't actually put out a twist, so I don't know what the story is there, why it was just individual accounts and not the actual, the official account, there might be a reason for that, I don't know, basically all confirming that, you know, it was happening, it was closing down, Hess mentioned as well in one of his posts that the main reason was for a lack of support for Vior in the industry, now some people have interpreted that as him blaming the players or whatever, but I think it had more to do with the more directed towards Sony or maybe something like that, how they weren't supporting them enough maybe, now of course Firewall Ultra had a very rough launch and needed a lot of work and the most painful part of all this closing is that they were getting there, I believe, you know, updates were coming out four months since it came out and that's another thing as well, it's only out four months and already this had to happen, but in those four months we got update after updates, some of those updates especially the early ones did introduce more issues which was a shame but I feel like the latter four or five updates did improve the game for the better, it's in a much more polished states now I would say, anyway like I was trying to say before I got interrupted by some young children I feel like the last few updates really have improved the game and if the game had released back in August the way it is today I think maybe things would have been a lot better, maybe, I mean we'll never know, we don't have magical powers, they can see alternate timelines or whatever but it kind of feels like it's in a much more acceptable state today but the hard thing is knowing that more updates, more improvements were coming and now maybe they won't, I mean they could possibly still come, we don't know what the story is, from what I heard from DeadEyeDan last night is that he was playing with Trevor and Trevor mentioned how there will be one more patch to come before they finish for good and this patch I think he said is going to address the railings so that you would be able to shoot through the railings, apparently you can't do that now and this little fix that might have other fixes as well but that's the one that was mentioned to Dan and Dan told me so there could be other stuff in that update that might fix other things maybe the grenade thing you know we were told that options for using grenades were going to be added but this was a while ago back when you know first contact wasn't going to close down so who knows if that's ever going to happen the next question then is what's going to happen in terms of firewall ultra and the future of firewall ultra is it going to keep going is it going to be shut down will there be updates what's going to happen so few people have met this point and I think it's a good one I've seen this in the discords and what not that evolution studios who are owned by sony they shut down months before drive club v or even released so that game came out after the studio shut down and the servers for that were kept going for four years so that does give us a little bit of hope that maybe firewall ultra will be in a playable stage for years to come which would be grace hopefully boss what about content updates what about fixing things what about adding things we don't know will sony put like a skeleton crew will they give it to another studio to look after all the stuff is up in the air my hope is that sony put out some kind of an announcement a blog post or tweets or something where they kind of give us some kind of indication as what's going on with the development of firewall ultra uh but no one sony they'll just say nothing and we'll be kept in the dark and you know we won't know and I've said this a few times already some people are saying you know some people have a low opinion when it comes to first contact entertainment there's some places where you cannot say anything positive about firewall ultra or you will be shot on uh there are some people who are going to be happy to hear this news and that's fine if you don't like firewall off you don't like first contact for whatever reasons you have the reason I'm not going to convince you otherwise probably uh but I would just say maybe try to keep in mind the human element that there was dozens I don't know the exact number but I assume it's in the dozens of staff members there who are without a job now at Christmas time which is incredibly rough and first contact entertainment have been nothing but good to me and this channel for years now ever since hess gave me a shout out at E3 you know back before the game even launched which was like a highlight for me something I never forget and we've had a good relationship since you know we kept in touch uh he's given me codes for stuff like that and for giveaways and you know even recently judging the uh the video clip competitions and stuff like that so about a great relationship I've had nothing but good things to say about first contact entertainment that's not to say I agree with every decision they made with firewall ultra and whatnot and even firewall zero hour to some degrees as well but I still feel like it's uh it is a massive massive shame that we're losing first contact entertainment no other game is trying to do what they're doing I mean people will call us Pavlov and preachers that just came out as well too early to make a decision on how I feel about preachers or whatever boss I will tell you that there's nothing else that feels like firewall ultra in terms of the triple A level of polish you know when I'm playing firewall ultra I can see the money on the screen I can see the Sony backing behind us you know and the details the way the freaking the sparks fly up when I hit a certain metallic objects or something like that you're just not going to see these little things and of course people will be like well that's not important these are just visual things but I think it adds to us I think that adds to the quality of the game uh as a whole and it's like a big reason why I loved the original firewall and I think a big reason of why it did so well so while some people may be happy to hear this news I think if you're a viewer fan or especially a PS viewer fan in general that this is nothing but bad news because we're losing a triple A game Sony is pulling support away from us and that can't be good after four months four months with a live service game and how many times have we seen a game a live service game even launching in a poorer condition and taken the years to come good basically look at no man's sky how long it took them to turn things around look at battlefield look at rainbow six siege even that game was hasted for months and months and months before they turned it around and it became you know one of the hottest games of all time fortnite even just launches a weird survival game thing until they launched the battle royale mode and that changed everything for them so I'm 100% pissed off at Sony that uh listen I can understand from a business point of view if it's not making money it's not making money but four months is no amount of time to allow them to turn things around especially within those four months we're seeing signs of progress signs of improvement signs of getting firewall ultra to where it needed to be and they still pulled the plug anyway I think this is uh this is something that will have me worried now not just about firewall ultra but this the psvr2 in general and sony's attitude toward us so yeah I don't really know what else I can say about this uh it's incredibly sad news like this channel was practically built around firewall zero hour back when nobody else was covering us and I saw this game I saw this gameplay footage and I was like this is crazy this is exactly what we want on psvr1 nobody else was doing this but other people were turned off by bravo team you know they're like oh it's gonna be another bravo team even though clearly it was going to be nothing like a bravo team if you actually watched the footage so I started covering it and people started coming and watching because some people out there agreed with me you know some people saw that firewall zero hour was something special that first contact entertainment had managed to create something special which they did and I was able to grow just from that game really like most of you people watching this right now are probably here because of firewall and now that's going to be gone or at least first contact entertainment is going to be gone again I don't know the future of firewall maybe I'm going to be having more videos to make when it comes to firewall ultra obviously a patch is going to come and I'll be covering that to see what that improves but after that in 2024 will I ever make a news story about firewall ultra again other than to say oh sony had given us 12 months before they shut the servers or something like that I don't know so yeah it's really sad it is really really sad it's probably the saddest video I've ever had to make on the channel I hope I don't ever have to make a sad one like this again you know when a studio like first contact entertainment with talent that they have the proven success that they had with firewall zero hour they had 10 seasons of post launch support with that game and sony saw us and even back in 2020 there was a top 10 revenue generations for viewer specific games and firewall zero hour was 10 in that list and that was up there with half-life alex and all these other games that have been out for a while and big names you know no other ps fewer exclusive was on that list but firewall zero hour was there and despite all this despite that cache that you'd imagine that that would afford first contact entertainment sony are pulling the plug after four months and I think it's disgusting shame on sony in my opinion I know it didn't launch perfectly I feel like there definitely should have been a bazaar for firewall ultra and again does that land on sony's laps or lap I don't know but it certainly feels like something that sony should have been involved in especially you know they own the IP they're the ones who kind of make all the big decisions and I feel like a bazaar is definitely something sony should have been a part of and should have made happen or allowed to happen so maybe they want maybe first contact wanted us and sony didn't allow us I don't know I don't know the story I don't know if we'll ever know the story it would be cool to see if you know any of the previous first contact entertainment developers come out and actually go into more detail as to what went on behind the scenes there you know it'd be interesting so yeah that's all there is to say really first contact entertainment or no more firewall ultra the future of that game is in doubt I'm going to keep playing as it's going to be in rotation on this channel for as long as the servers stay up I will be putting this in rotation I'll be hoping to play it as much as I can because it is unmatched that game in terms of the core gameplay elements in terms of that mode the tension in that mode is just like it's just not matched the communication that you need is just no other game have I had that and I'm comparing flat games as well just nothing else has it anyway I'm going to end this video lads and ladies um before I do I better thank my channel members Dante Bruce mr. 777 aced lone wolf the ore edify till I die superfly af crumb Pete Hawkins deej the pumpkin patch kid move master make esports commentator for hire no one knows chopped PPE dead I dan and moz thank you very much for that support it is greatly appreciated and if you would like to become a channel member you can do so by clicking the join button and you will gain access to exclusive channel member perks that is all I have to say thank you for watching this video and first contact entertainment if you're watching this or any of the members at first contact entertainment I want to give you a special thanks for giving us something special you found success in a field that very few people can in a you know particularly a live service game it's really difficult to do that in virtual reality and I think you know hats off to every single one of you who was involved in that past present you know and I hope everybody lands on their feet I hope to see you all working in the game industry again hopefully specifically the viewer industry but you know wherever you gotta go you gotta go and I wish everyone involved a merry happy Christmas and a happy new year and to every single person watching as well happy new year happy Christmas I hope you had a good one it's after it's after Christmas but you know happy new year and I'll see you in the next one goodbye for now