Favourable or not, a review is unlikely to change the present discourse around Concord. It may already be too late for the ambitious, PVP first-person shooter — and the debut release from the new PlayStation first-party studio, Firewalk Studios. The internet seems to have already made up its mind.
Concord, as a reminder, is the Guardians of the Galaxy-esque hero shooter first announced at a PlayStation showcase last year. It’s the latest iteration of PlayStation’s live-service push, albeit with an emphasis on narrative with weekly story vignettes. A beta for the game occurred some weeks ago and was met with a middling reception.
Several factors might explain the poor reception. The announcement received backlash for leading with the narrative elements before revealing it was a hero shooter. An understandable scepticism surrounds PlayStation’s much-critiqued shift in strategy towards live-service titles. The $60 price tag attached to the multiplayer-only title stands in stark contrast to the free-to-play model adopted by many of Concord’s competitors.
It’s a shame. Concord is a nicely presented, well-designed and surprisingly unique competitive hero shooter. The decisions holding the game back seem more strategic blunders than the fault of the developers. Speaking to them recently, they tow the party line whilst speaking ever so passionately about the game and world they’ve built.
They should be proud, as any developer should. Spending the majority of the weekend playing the game, I find myself writing this eager to play more even with its shortcomings.
Concord’s design is a unique twist on the hero shooter genre. Rather than pointing players towards a single character — and ‘maining’ said character — you are actively encouraged to flick between a few mid-match.
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Different classes of character (or Freegunners, as they’re called) award Crew Bonuses, awarding perks to each you select thereafter. Play as Emari and get increased healing. Then play as Lennox, you’ll keep increased healing and add improved weapon range. Switch to IT-Z and get both bonuses, plus improved mobility. Every character is enjoyable to play and a meaningful addition to a crew.
Assembling a crew and putting a plan into action is immensely rewarding. I often started a match as Roka picking up some quick elims whilst getting a mobility buff, before switching to Haymar and improving my range. That allowed me to play Emari without as significant a penalty to her mobility as a tank, and better range on the minigun.
When it all comes together, combat is super rewarding and produces some tense, competitive matches. Each character’s loadout is varied but equally versatile, the gunplay is tight, the dodge makes for handy last-minute getaways, and the mad dash to a health pickup creates some tense cat-and-mouse moments. Certain the moment-to-moment gameplay is the game’s strong suit.
Been playing a tonne of Concord this weekend and enjoying it thoroughly! Here’s a tidy 7 elimination streak playing as Lennox ?? pic.twitter.com/EDcn96eaHl
— Ewan Roxburgh (@Ewan_Roxburgh) August 25, 2024
For now, the game has six modes grouped into three playlists: Takedown (team deathmatch), Trophy Hunt (kill confirmed), Area Control (domination), Signal Hunt (hardpoint), and the no-respawn modes Cargo Hunt (search and destroy) and Clash Point (king of the hill).
Plotting out which characters you’ll select in different phases of the match, across different modes, adds an interesting layer of strategy that makes the game deeper than it appears at face value. The team at Firewalk are right to compare it to a trading card game in terms of planning out late-game plays by carefully selecting the cards (or characters) you play first.
Frustratingly, the game does a poor job of explaining this mechanic. Those without the attention span to look beyond a Freegunner’s loadout and abilities might miss one of the more interesting elements of the game.
The added tutorial section to the game post-beta doesn’t do enough to explain it but a welcome addition to the game to onboard new players. Concord seems rather approachable for newcomers to the hero shooter genre.
For now, however, the game feels light on content. Granted it’s only the first week, but over a couple of evenings I completed my weekly, seasonal and variant challenges, leaving me with little consequential to progress until the weekly reset.
Of course, you could continue ranking up your Freegunners and your overall Reputation level, but often there’s not much of a carrot being tangled.
Progression feels a little unrewarding. None of the skins or other customisations you could unlock excited me. Even if they did, how you unlock any particular item is not explained. You can only ever see your next unlock and must wait until you complete that to see what’s next.
Uninteresting unlocks seem to be a consequence of character design that prioritises recognisable silhouettes over player expression. Granted, it works well on the battlefield; at a glance, you can see who’s coming at you and adjust your approach accordingly. Comparing it to another hero shooter though, Apex Legends did such a great job of offering interesting character and weapons customisations without confusing.
Concord lacks a little personality. An effort is no doubt made but like an over-enthusiastic guy at a party trying a little too hard to be your friend. There’s a heavy-handedness to the delivery that irks me. Given that you can skip straight past them, I expect these vignettes to do something rather special to earn the view.
An introductory cutscene and the first week’s vignette favour Lennox over the others. It’s early days sure, but there is little to showcase the characters out of the box. The rest of them have a single throwaway voice line repeated upon selecting them in a match and touches of dialogue in-game. The only one I can say is particularly memorable is Roka chanting “Roka, Roka, Roka” after running up a streak.
What the game lacks in charisma, however, it makes up for in art direction. I adore the 70s sci-fi aesthetic; the maps, characters and weapons are all distinctive but fit together. It carries over to the UI and sound design too. Bar a couple of hiccups in the framerate and menus sometimes not loading, it’s a smooth experience with the level of polish you would expect from a first-party release.
PlayStation has been eager to promote the world of Concord in the marketing of this new IP. I hope Firewalk Studios gets the opportunity to explore it further, but for now, it’s not terribly impactful. Presently it feels like a missed opportunity to set up each match with little than some text suggesting “a rival crew is challenging you.”
I’m eager to see more weekly vignettes, for however long Firewalk can justify doing so. Hopefully, surprising stories emerge.
Outside of the vignettes, Concord’s lore is relegated to flavour text and the Galactic Guide. There are some interesting concepts tied up in this. The
Tempest at the far left side of the map is an unexplained phenomenon seemingly gobbling up and distorting parts of the galaxy. Gloom, one of my favourite maps in the game, has an asteroid in the centre that the Galactic Guide reveals was the focus of religious studies by an ancient species that once occupied the planet.
There’s interesting lore embedded in here that may influence how the game shapes and evolves. I foresee a day when The Tempest swallows up sections of the galaxy in an event akin to Fortnite’s major map resets.
Will a community be there to bear witness to these events? Concord wouldn’t be the first live-service game to turn things around should it pull it off, but the odds are stacked against it at this point.
Much has been said about Concord’s pricing. Truthfully, I can rationalise the $60 price tag: all that purchase Concord gets its 6 modes, 12 maps, 16 characters and unlocks, wrapped up in a premium, AAA package. If three-quarters of the unlocks were tied to a Battle Pass, I have little doubt there would be a negative reaction to that too.
It doesn’t differ all that much from Helldivers II where the first Warbond was included in the same $60 price. Given the opportunity, I’m sure Concord will introduce more paid elements too.
What I can’t rationalise regarding the price is the lack of competitive analysis. Going up against the likes of Overwatch, Marvel Rivals and Apex Legends — to name a few — fans of the genre are accustomed to the free-to-play model.
Saw someone do this in Concord and wanted to give it a go myself ? pic.twitter.com/9TuEkOuVGW
— Ewan Roxburgh (@Ewan_Roxburgh) August 26, 2024
Without hype or an overwhelmingly positive word of mouth, it’s hard to imagine many giving the game the time of day. Adding Concord to the Game Catalogue reserved for PlayStation Extra and Premium subscribers seems like a no-brainer to me.
Content brings community, and a community brings content. It’s an almost chicken-and-the-egg scenario, or at least a delicate balancing act.
For a live-service game, I feel like the game lacks a little staying power. The core gameplay is engaging and is the reason I’m coming back for now, but I struggle to see what keeps me coming back long-term if not more modes, ranked lobbies and must-have unlocks.
From there, the full extent of Firewalk Studio’s ambitious vision can come alive.
