We finally got our hands on Concord, the live service hero shooter from Firewalk Studios, ahead of its August 23 launch. Sony’s big multiplayer gamble didn’t get the best of first impressions when it debuted on Situationbut now that we’ve played the game for a while, the question is, will this be the next live service hit?
Trust is the name of the game here, and despite the perceived public attitude towards hero shooters, Concord boasts all the graphical and musical bombast you’d expect from a Sony first-party experience. We love good UI and menu design, and Concord has both in spades, and there’s a certain “big deal” energy to the whole thing that we found infectious.
The beta includes access to three modes, four maps, all 16 characters, and a selection of unlockable cosmetics – none of which won’t carry over to the full release. What we have here is essentially Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, and a round-based Capture the Point mode. It’s nothing you haven’t played before, so where Concord tries to differentiate itself is in its characters and gameplay.
The first-person shooting is incredibly tight, in places reminiscent of Destiny 2’s floating gameplay – which isn’t a surprise considering the ex-Bungie talent on board with Firewalk. Across all 16 characters, you’ve got your typical archetypes of tanks, healers, aggressors, and supports, but where Concord succeeds is in the gameplay loops that you find within each character.
Teo uses smoke bombs to reduce visibility, then uses his scope to spot enemies and finish them off with his cluster bomb. 1-Off sends out his barrelling trash bombs to disrupt enemies, and uses his vacuum to protect the team. Jabali is a frontline healer who can whittle away enemy health with his seeker rifle, heal the team with his healing aura, and deal decent damage with his hunter orbs.
The list goes on, but as with any good hero shooter, the fun lies in playing your role and supporting your team – something that was surprisingly present in our randomly matched sessions over the weekend. Sure, there will be favorites, like the high-damage Haymar or the self-healing Lennox, but it was nice to see such a varied selection in matches, with no clear frontrunners. Firewalk has seemingly produced a well-balanced selection of heroes with something to offer.
What’s most surprising about Concord, though, is how it manages to strike a balance between a hero shooter with lots of time to kill and changing objectives, and an arena shooter like XDefiant, where you can still rack up impressive kill streaks.
It is in that fundamental change that we believe Concord could be thrive, because it’s a defining gameplay loop that we couldn’t get enough of. Skills recharge fairly quickly and can be replenished after kills, so the battlefield feels much more dynamic. We’re incredibly guilty of holding on to our skills for the “right time” in hero shooters, but here, any time is the right time – and even when it isn’t, you’re not punished too much for it.
Health is also a big factor in all of this. Your health won’t regenerate on its own, so instead you’ll have to visit one of the few health pick-up points, or rely on a healing teammate. It’s not something we were all that excited about to begin with, but it ultimately affects how you play, and adds yet another layer of tension to Concord’s arc.
It’s a fantastic start to a game we have here at Push square are incredibly excited about it, but after our time with the beta there are still a few things we’re not sure about. Firstly, if you played the beta you’ll have done a lot of leveling, but it’s not entirely clear what you’re leveling for. Daily, weekly, and seasonal challenges give XP, which increases your profile level, but completing matches also increases your specific character level. Cosmetics seem to be the focus, but if what we have here is any sign of things to come, they’re definitely going to be sparse. Thankfully, there will also be Freegunner challenges, which unlock character variants with different passive abilities, which we imagine will be a good reason to stick around for “just one more game.”
Then there are the weekly vignettes. What we’ve seen so far are a bunch of high-quality cutscenes that may not have any defining characteristics. They’re just there for now, but we don’t expect to fall in love with these characters from day one. We’re extremely interested to see how sustainable and effective this approach to storytelling is, because from the small details we’ve had so far, Firewalk is clearly trying to build a deep lore.
Honestly, our biggest issue with Concord is that the current modes don’t last long enough to really get into the action. Both the TDM and Kill Confirmed modes only require 30 points per team and are often over in under five minutes. Obviously, we don’t have access to the full list of modes at the moment, but we’re hoping something more substantial will be available at launch. As it stands, matches are too fragmented and just as they really get going, they’re over.
Concord is a delightfully vibrant and robust shooter that feels almost ready to go. There were no server crashes, slow matches, glitches or anything like that during the beta weekend. It’s a polished experience that feels ready to join the Sony aisle, and one that we think players should give a try. Is it the most original take on the hero shooter genre? No, but it’s a polished, premium product that already has a solid foundation to build on. There are a few questions we have that we suspect won’t be answered until full release, and we’d love to see it given a bit more airing, but as it stands, Concord has just rocketed to the top of our most anticipated game list.
Have you checked out the Concord beta? What do you think of it so far? Let us know what your Freegunning activities are in the comments below.