Concord Review: Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Features for PS5 and PC Video Game
Sony
Concord from developer Firewalk Studios and published by Sony, looks to shake up the online shooter market in a big way.
A first-person PvP hero shooter, Concord feels like a direct response to everything from Overwatch, Apex Legends and even Destiny. It offers up new ways to counteract some of the issues that have plagued those titles, chief among them how to deliver story-based narrative that keeps the experience engaging.
Not to go overlooked, though, are some potential innovations in how players formulate teams in a hero shooterâand some downright fantastic-feeling first-person action, a feat that is exclusive to very few of these types of launches.
On paper, Concord has the making of a smash hit in a potentially Helldivers 2 range, but only if all of its complicated parts come together well in motion enough to reel in a big initial audience.
Graphics and Gameplay
Speaking of in motion, Concord flexes some stunning visuals and physics wrapped in the power of Unreal Engine 5 to an eye-pleasing effect.
The cutscenes and character models in Concord are fantastic-looking and each of the 16 characters sounds great, too, simply oozing personality. Lighting and shadows, even the selection screen, are simply stunning in detail and that same idea applies to a wide range of maps.
What really deserves a nod, though, is the splendid directional audio that will help a possible competitive scene surge, especially considering there isn’t a radar to rely on for enemy locations.
Like Destiny and other shooters, the level of detail packed into multiplayer maps, skyboxes and the weapons themselves can be borderline distracting. Not problematic, though, is a rather smooth user interface (UI) that displays the critical information of a given game mode quite well.
Those characters fall into different roles. Bazz, seen in a ton of the game’s promo material, is a “Haunt” who uses throwing knives and applies debuffs with them on hit via an ability, while her passive marks the enemy, giving her teammates wallhacks. Star Child, another face all over the pre-release material, is a “Breacher” who uses a shotgun and gets additional armor when flinging himself into the middle of enemies.
There are also Wardens (snipers, essentially), Rangers (scouts), Tacticians (stealth) and Anchors (tanks). Yet, the game actually falls into an Overwatch sort of feel in that most teams seem to need a tank and a healer, albeit without the polarizing role-queue that has tormented Overwatch for years.
Clearly aiming to address other issues suffered by those that came before it (one-tricking characters is a huge one), Concord attempts to marry FPS action with card-based deckbuilding strategy between rounds.
This means controlling the “when’ of deploying characters in a match after assembling them in the Crew Builder, where the deck-building strategy is most prominent. There, players can slot in 12 different Freegunners and variants. Those variants of the original characters come equipped with different combat traits.
There are interesting rules to the Crew Builder, too. Each custom crew must have five unique Freegunners and can stack a maximum of three variants of a given character.
Then there are the aptly named Crew Bonuses. These are additional stat buffs, such as increased healing received or boosted mobility added by which Roles a player’s deployed Freegunners have. Deploying an Anchor in Round 1 boosts healing received to all characters in future rounds, too, for example.
Whether these bonuses are enough to encourage players to team-build with others or a chunk of players merely hard-lock a character and don’t care about bonuses remains to be seenâbut the effort is much appreciated.
Players will engage with these systems across six game modes that will feel familiar, such as Clash Point (control a single zone), Trophy Hunt (team deathmatch with dropped bounty cards to accumulate score) and Cargo Run (capture the flag hybrid), among others.
While there are some clear balancing issues that will mean players favor one character over another at launch, games like these rotating through metas via balance passes is a common thing.
Most important of all, Concord is simply fun to play. It’s got a little of that Bungie secret FPS sauce going for it in terms of first-person movement and gunplay that 99 percent of the market fails to manage. And that should be reason enough to draw players in, where they might just find the mentioned systems above keeping them invested.
Story and More
Where Concord might earn the most attention with the broadest base of players is its fresh-feeling approach to ongoing story and character narratives in a live-service effort like this.
The game will offer weekly new vignettes that flesh out characters and move the story forward within the well-crafted universe. It’s a little thing that sounds super-obvious for the genre now that it’s here, but credit goes to Concord for figuring it out.
When one of the biggest requests around similar games is simply to know more about the characters and universe, this is a huge thing to get right. And while Destiny currently struggles by changing from the story pacing of “seasons” and switching to even drier, extended “episodes” with a time-gated narrative, Concord feels like it finds the right balance in a way other games might emulate in the future.
Some of the game’s universe also gets fleshed out in the form of the Galactic Guide. This is a lore-based unlock that drip-feeds players information and such while they level upâwhich is a nice little bonus atop the usual earnable rewards in games like these.
That said, the tone won’t be for everyone. Where some might yearn for a more grounded sci-fi setting, this is more aligned with a sarcastic, quippy Guardians of the Galaxy thing.
Beyond the innovation on that front, like its game modes and classes, Concord falls into familiar territory with live-service stuff. There are daily and weekly missions, seasonal pursuits and crew-based challenges. Unlocks include the expected things like outfits, weapon skins and charms, and postgame stances.
Deja vu-inducing or not, it all works well together in unison. It feels like a fair grind at launch and it’s fun to customize the characters and see where things can go when adding some personal flair.
There are some fun, borderline necessary side features like a training mode, firing range and time trials section. Nothing too wild, but for those players who used to load up the Overwatch firing range while waiting in a queue for a match, they’re almost comfy.
Concord boasts robust post-launch plans that will be free to players, but obviously, judging those offerings will come at a later date. Still, planned long-term support is nothing but a good sign.
The game also makes sure to shine in necessary areas such as the options and accessibility menus. Next-gen staples like crossplay and cross-progression make it in and the game generally runs very well, too.
Conclusion
The future of Concord makes… for an interesting discussion. There are dozens of successful free-to-play games that do similar things. The massive big exception for this space was Helldivers 2 earlier this year. Asking $40 at launch with this type of game, historically, is a big risk, which is a shame because there’s an excellent package here that could stumble out of the gates as a result when it should skyrocket.
That said, Concord has two very, very important things going for it. One, it’s super fun and engaging with memorable characters and lore.
And two, Concord might have found an innovative way to get narrative into this type of gameplay loop and structure. Whereas grasping at story seemed to doom the transition from Overwatch to its sequel, these bite-sized lore additions each week are a nice touch.
Any entry into this particular space faces an uphill climb. But Concord has the right combination of fun factor and systems that smooth over well-trodden issues found elsewhere that it should develop some serious legs and earn a devoted playerbase.
