Concord was originally teased last year with a simple video showing a ship through space. I think there was a hamburger involved. Anyway, after seeing that short teaser I was honestly expecting to see a story-driven FPS – this is a first-party Sony game, after all – but maybe it would be something like an MMO, a la Destiny. I was on board for a new experience anyway, but then I was somewhat surprised to learn that Concord is in fact a 5v5 shooter.
And now that I’ve played it, I’m really glad that Concord plans to keep track of the world history and ongoing storyline, as some of my favorite FPS games like Overwatch and Apex Legends also do this seasonally. Furthermore, each season released will be free for all players, who simply need to purchase the game and enjoy future updates.
While I generally enjoyed my time in the limited hands-on preview, I have several concerns about the longevity of Concord and what it has to offer. Concord’s meat-and-potatoes format is a fairly standard 5v5 format, with two teams choosing their favorite character before diving into an objective-based team battle.
During the preview, I was able to play three of the six modes that will be available at launch: Trophy Hunt, Cargo Run, and Clash Point. Trophy Hunt was the only one with respawns in the match and was essentially a Kill Confirmed team deathmatch.
Cargo Run, meanwhile, was a one-life competition where the goal was to run downtown, steal a Blue Buddy package, and plant it in one of two locations. If planted, the enemy team could step on the package to scatter it and take it back. And finally, Clash Point was a round-based single-life game mode with the objective of controlling the only capture zone on the entire map multiple times to achieve victory.
The single-life modes were difficult to warm up to while still getting to know the game, as failure obviously means you’re out of the action for a while. And while Concord is a fairly simple FPS, just two months after its launch on August 24, I have one core criticism: in the build I played, the movement felt extremely floaty and took some time to get used to. This is made worse by the fact that each Freerunner character you can play has a unique set of moves and skills that the team brings to the table, so every time you switch to a new character you’re trying to relearn and train your brain. explain how they work. So you can imagine that it gets a bit disorienting.
And while Concord will be released with PS5 on PC day and date, I was only able to watch this on PS5 with a controller, and with that in mind I’d say the movement is very reminiscent of Destiny and Halo. Again, it’s incredibly floaty, which can be a fun element if done right. However, the way the preview build felt, the feather-light jumps and hangtime didn’t match the amount of quick combat that could happen at any point in the matches.
While Halo uses a similar floating jump mechanic, the rest of the mechanics and gameplay in Halo justify that reasoning and don’t make it feel like the odd one out. Grenades also feel light when lobbed through the air, the different skills in Halo all have the same weight and cadence, and the match pace reflects the balance of the base game’s mechanics. Players in Halo, even in competitive ranked matches, heal over time after not taking damage for a while.
Likewise, Destiny is a game that is more PvE related and thus doesn’t require the incredibly spicy mechanics that Halo or Concord require in PvP battles. Even in the PvP battles in Destiny, the usual TTK is slower, as the battles can be drawn out due to the different class abilities that allow for slower or faster play depending on how players choose to engage (i.e. more direct or more reserved) . Each class also has different movement abilities and healing abilities that keep the match pace consistent throughout the match.
So the problem with Concord, at least in this preview version, is that it takes little bits from games like Halo and Destiny and puts them together into a formula that doesn’t quite come together for me yet. Concord basically uses the same type of dodge animation from Destiny that pulls you out in third person. While I liked this element in Destiny, it doesn’t quite work in Concord as there is a short but noticeable delay between your dodge input and the actual deployment. This can make or break your life, as timing is everything in competitive play and a single hesitation, or simulated hesitation from the delayed input, can punish you immensely.
Sony says there will be a total of six maps at launch, so perhaps some game modes will feel better paced and optimized than the others when spread out. But as things stand, most of the cards felt very strangely misshapen. Some lanes were too long or too big and saw barely any rotations, while the second lane on another map would simply feel too small and cause lengthy team fights due to its claustrophobic size.
Concord praises his competitive nature and quick fights. I love all that, but found that the competitiveness risks being unwelcoming to new players trying to learn the game, as most game modes are focused on one life.
It’s important to note that even if you’re an incredible player, Concord isn’t a game that can win many 1v2 battles. Unlike a game of Apex or Halo, where you can potentially outsmart your opponents and win in 1v2 scenarios, Concord is such a team game that you can’t succeed if you’re alone. While this is The thing about team FPS games is that it’s quite punishing for modes like Trophy Hunt, where you’re encouraged to go out and rack up kills for the cause.
Another reason why these lopsided matchups are impossible to win is the fact that each character in Concord has their own health pool and hitbox. This would be fine if these characters had your traditional classes, but Concord doesn’t use your typical class system. Typically, each class has its own health stats that you can expect from each character in that label.
For example, if you look at Overwatch, most tanks have a base health of around 525 to 700 (with combinations of shields or armor in play for specific characters that have them, like DVA and Reinhardt). In Concord it was incredibly difficult to tell what exactly the health pool was for any of the classes because there was nothing really set in stone with their system.
For example, 1-Off is a cute robot that sucks up trash and is definitely a tank character with his large physique and clumsy movements and hard weapons that has 300 health. However, Teo, who is essentially a DPS who plays as your traditional ground soldier-like character without tanking qualities, has 220 health as a Concord Ranger class. But Roka, another character who is essentially a DPS, is classified as a Haunt and has 170 health.
What these non-traditional classes mean is extremely confusing. In the preview we didn’t get any details on each class and what the terms mean, but it all seems a bit arbitrary when the health pools and damage numbers vary so widely, creating an even further division in the game’s balance.
Overwatch also uses the system to ensure that there is a grid for the number of characters allowed from each class. Concord currently does not use such a mechanic and allows players to use whatever characters they want, as these class systems are not traditional. While this is nice in theory, in my brief experience playing a competitive game like Concord it doesn’t work out too well.
Another reason why Concord is so much of a team game is that each character has their own running speed and damage output. You could say this is an extension of the lack of clear classes, but I wanted to focus on this as its own balancing issue. The DPS for characters is quite important, as you can have a team of whatever characters you want.
There were some absolutely ‘overpowered’ characters in the preview build that you really needed on your team if you wanted to win, especially in Trophy Hunt. Let’s take a look at the Freegunner rocket launcher, Roka.
She can deal 43 damage on critical hits, while firing quickly and pinpointing her target almost instantly. After doing some watchbacks, it seems like there’s no real answer to what Roka’s splash damage distance is and how much it does consistently. So far I’ve seen it hit from quite a distance and deal 12 damage, then also hit 27 damage closer to the target. Roka also has a total of eight rockets to use before reloading, so these numbers add up.
Comparing this to Pharah from Overwatch, another character who wields a rocket launcher, she only deals 40 damage to an enemy when they are nearby. directly hit, with her splash damage approximately half. She also only has six missiles before she needs to reload and has no ability to lock fire.
Obviously comparing these two games isn’t fair either, but it’s important to note the difference between balancing. It is entirely possible that, over time, Concord will gain a better understanding of how to maintain balance. But as it stands now, I’m concerned about the experience of more casual players and overall accessibility.
The option to crossplay with PC and PS5 will be available at launch, which is good news for players like me who have friends on both platforms, but it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. The preview build I played showed heavy aim assist on controllers. It was most noticeable with Roka, the rocket launcher character, because her weapon locks into place. I found I really had to pull the thumbstick away to get her to turn away from the nearest enemy that I didn’t even want to target.
The other characters I played didn’t have nearly as aggressive aim assist, but I could feel the magnetization there, which was a bit frustrating and concerning considering the crossplay option would be enabled at launch. While yes, you can argue that you can make faster motion adjustments on PC, the ongoing battle between controller aim assist versus keyboard and mouse movement only seems to be exacerbated here.
Fortunately, there are still a few months to go until Concord’s launch – still a fair amount of time for balancing and tweaking every aspect of the game that always happens at this stage of the development process. Fingers crossed Concord can tighten up the smooth controls and address character balance before it releases on August 24 for PS5 and PC.