Firewall Ultra, the tactical team shooter that dropped in 2023, has kind of fallen off the radar since First Contact Entertainment, the developer behind it, closed shop later that same year. This happened a mere four months after the game’s debut on PSVR 2. Out of nowhere, though, Sony just surprised everyone with a new patch aiming to entice fresh players. The twist is, nobody really knows why they’re doing it.
A Reddit user by the name of ‘ROBYER1’ noticed over the weekend that Sony rolled out an update boosting the XP and in-game ‘Crypto’ currency by four times. This change essentially makes it easier for new players to get their hands on cosmetics and various in-game items without slogging through endless grind sessions.
So, what’s the reason behind this update now? ‘Gamertag VR’ threw out some ideas in a recent video—it’s included below—and it covers the game’s backstory along with its ongoing issues. Gamertag speculates on why Sony might have chosen this particular moment to act. “An update like this will surely only benefit new players,” Gamertag points out. “Perhaps Sony’s about to drop Firewall Ultra onto PlayStation Plus next February. Maybe there’s a sudden upswing in the game’s popularity, or they could be gearing up for a major sale.”
There’s one more theory, though it’s a bit more pessimistic. It might simply be a last-ditch effort by Sony to revitalize Firewall Ultra. Sales and player engagement have been less than stellar in 2024, raising the specter of the game being delisted. But whether or not any of these scenarios pan out, Firewall Ultra is still up for grabs at $40. It’s a hefty price tag for a game unlikely to see further significant updates.
When Firewall Ultra launched in August 2023, it hoped to recapture the success of Firewall Zero Hour from 2018 on the original PSVR. Despite aiming high, it tripped over quite a few hurdles, even though it was tagged as one of the leading shooters for PSVR 2 at the time. Critics flagged several issues right off the bat, including problems with the control scheme, a lack of gameplay variety, and a somewhat uninspiring progression system, leaving it with a mediocre Metacritic score of 61/100.
In the following months, First Contact worked hard to patch things up. They rolled out updates to address aiming mechanics, introduced new maps, balanced gameplay, and brought in an Assignments system for leveling up and unlocking new gear. Despite all these tweaks and fixes, it wasn’t enough to draw the player base they were counting on. In December 2023, the studio admitted that the “lack of support for VR within the industry” played a significant role in their decision to shut down.
