Sony
Concord, developed by Firewalk Studios and published by Sony, seems to be shaking up the online shooter market.
A first-person PvP hero shooter, Concord feels like a direct response to everything from Overwatch, Apex Legends, and even Destiny. It offers new ways to fix some of the problems that have plagued those titles, most notably providing a story-driven narrative that keeps the experience engaging.
Not to be forgotten, however, are some potential innovations in the way players form teams in a hero shooter – and some truly fantastic-looking first-person action games, a feat reserved for very few releases of this type.
On paper, “Concord” has the makings of a huge hit in a potential Helldivers 2 series, but only if all of its intricate pieces fit together well enough in motion to attract a large initial audience.
Speaking of movement, Concord offers stunning visual and physics effects that, thanks to the power of Unreal Engine 5, create an eye-pleasing effect.
The cutscenes and character models in Concord look fantastic, and each of the 16 characters sounds great and is bursting with personality. The lighting and shadows, even the selection screen, are just stunningly detailed, and the same goes for a variety of maps.
What really deserves recognition, however, is the great directional audio, which will help boost the competitive scene, especially considering there is no radar to rely on to determine enemy locations.
As with Destiny and other shooters, the level of detail in the multiplayer maps, skyboxes, and weapons themselves can be almost distracting. What is not a problem, however, is the fairly fluid user interface (UI), which displays the important information of a particular game mode quite well.
These characters take on different roles. Bazz, who is featured in many of the game’s promo materials, is a “Haunt” who uses throwing knives and applies debuffs when hit via an ability, while using her passive to mark the enemy and wallhack her teammates. Star Child, another face seen throughout the pre-release material, is a “Breacher” who uses a shotgun and gains extra armor when he throws himself into the middle of enemies.
There are also Wardens (essentially snipers), Rangers (scouts), Tacticians (stealth), and Anchors (tanks). Still, the game actually has a sort of Overwatch feel to it, as most teams seem to need a tank and a healer, albeit without the polarizing role list that plagued Overwatch for years.
Concord clearly aims to fix other problems of its predecessors (the ability to outsmart characters is a major problem) and attempts to combine FPS action with card-based deck-building strategy between rounds.
This means that you control the timing of using characters in a match after assembling them in the Crew Builder, where deck-building strategy is most important. There, players can use 12 different freegunners and variants. These variants of the original characters come with different combat characteristics.
There are also interesting rules for the Crew Builder. Each custom crew must consist of five unique freegunners and can stack a maximum of three variants of a particular character.
Then there are the aptly named Crew Bonuses. These are additional stat boosts, such as increased healing or improved mobility, determined by the roles of a player’s deployed freegunners. For example, deploying an anchor on turn 1 also increases the healing all characters receive on future turns.
Whether these bonuses are enough to encourage players to team up with others, or whether a portion of players just stick with one character and don’t care about bonuses, remains to be seen – but the effort is greatly appreciated.
Players can interact with these systems in six familiar game modes, such as Clash Point (control of a single zone), Trophy Hunt (team deathmatch with dropped bounty cards to earn points), and Cargo Run (hybrid “capture the flag” mode).
While there are some clear balance issues that cause players to favor one character over another at launch, it’s common for games like these to go through the meta via balance passes.
And most importantly, Concord is easy Fun to play. It has a bit of Bungie’s secret FPS sauce in terms of first-person movement and gunplay that 99 percent of the market can’t get right. And that should be reason enough to attract players who may find that the above systems keep them engaged.
Where Concord might attract the most attention from the widest player base is its refreshing approach to ongoing story and character narratives in a live service project like this.
The game features new vignettes weekly that flesh out the characters and advance the story in the well-crafted universe. It’s a little thing that sounds super obvious for the genre now that it’s here, but Concord deserves credit for figuring it out.
When one of the biggest requests in similar games is simply to learn more about the characters and universe, that’s a tall order. And while Destiny is currently struggling to change the story pace of “seasons” and move to even drier, longer “episodes” with a timed narrative, Concord seems to be striking the right balance that other games could emulate in the future.
Part of the game’s universe is also further explained in the form of the Galactic Guide, a lore-based unlock that drip-feeds information and the like to players as they level up – a nice little bonus to the usual rewards that can be earned in games like these.
However, the tone won’t be to everyone’s taste. While some may crave a more down-to-earth sci-fi setting, this is more geared towards a sarcastic, quick-witted Guardians of the Galaxy kind of thing.
Aside from innovations on that front, like game modes and classes, Concord is in familiar territory with live service content. There are daily and weekly missions, seasonal tasks, and crew-based challenges. Unlocks include the usual stuff like outfits, weapon skins and charms, and post-game stances.
Whether it induces a sense of déjà vu or not, everything works well in unison. It feels like quite a grind at launch, and it’s fun to customize the characters and see where things go when you give them a personal touch.
There are some fun, almost necessary side features like a training mode, a shooting range, and a time trial section. Nothing too fancy, but for the players who used to load up Overwatch’s shooting range while queuing for a match, they’re almost convenient.
Concord offers solid post-launch plans that will be free for players, but of course these offerings will be judged at a later date. Still, the planned long-term support is nothing but a good sign.
The game also shines in key areas like the options and accessibility menus. Next-gen classics like crossplay and cross-progression are present, and the game generally runs very well too.
The future of Concord is… an interesting point of discussion. There are dozens of successful free-to-play games that do similar things. The big exception in this area was Helldivers 2 earlier this year. Historically, charging $40 at launch on this type of game is a big risk, which is a shame because this is an excellent overall package that could stumble if it does skyrocket.
However, Concord has two very, very important things going for it: First, it is super fun and captivating with its unforgettable characters and storyline.
And second, Concord may have found an innovative way to incorporate narrative into this kind of gameplay loop and structure. While sticking to history seemed to have doomed Overwatch’s transition to sequel, these bite-sized lore additions each week are a nice touch.
Any entry into this particular space is an uphill battle, but Concord has the right combination of fun factor and systems that iron out long-standing problems found elsewhere, so it should gain serious traction and a loyal player base.
