The release of Overwatch turned a lot of heads in 2016 (and way fewer with the release of Overwatch 2 in 2022). Many clones were created in and around the time of the original’s release, with claims of copycat being echoed through the halls of the video game community (despite many of the games being in development at the same time). But with the fall of Overwatch over time and the rise of its toxic community, I thought we wouldn’t see much in the way of a new hero shooter any time soon. How wrong I was. And of all the publishers, Sony seems to have taken the reigns. Concord is a hero shooter that pits players against each other in 5v5 matchups. I played a few hours of the beta to get an idea about this sci-fi hero FPS.
Concord’s intro animations are great, even if the content in its cutscenes leaves a bit to be desired. The characters are each unique and varied, but something was missing throughout the entire experience that Overwatch had in heaps: soul. Something felt missing throughout my time with the Concord characters that I never did with my first Overwatch session. I continued to be impressed by Concord's character animations when selecting a character, but for the life of me could only tell you the names of two of them after playing for hours. When I was coming close to finishing my time with the beta, one question continued to hum in my ear: why does this game exist?
I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but out of, for a lack of better words, total bewilderment. As I mentioned previously, Sony is publishing this game. They bought this studio in a push for live-service games. They even had Naughty Dog discontinue the huge Factions sequel they were working on because Bungie said it wasn’t good enough to monetize. Yet this game made it through the wringer? How did this game get Sony to open their wallet? I was even more disappointed with the reveal of FairGame$ last year, but this… Well, this is a bit of a letdown. While Helldivers 2 has been a great co-op success, the rest of Sony’s games as a service (GaaS) approach seems to be too reliant on Bungie’s “expertise”. I hate to say it because every triple-A game takes a lot of resources and dedication to make, but Concord seems like it will be dead upon its arrival, especially if we take into account the dismal PC player numbers during the totally free and open beta weekend.
Not all is bad, despite its lack of a soul, the game mechanics feel decent. Once I managed to adjust my sensitivity a bit, the game became playable. Semi-smooth, though not quite on par with Bungie’s darlings (Destiny, Halo) or Respawn’s babies (Apex, Titanfall). Each character has a unique weapon (a la Overwatch) with infinite ammo, and each has unique abilities. Some of these abilities recharge over time, while others must be restocked by defeating enemies. I found some characters were much better damage dealers than others and that the time-to-kill sometimes felt too high for others. I would consistently put up better numbers with Lennox than with Haymar (the two characters whose names I can remember), though my assists were much higher with Haymar. The characters didn’t feel balanced, and I understand that some heroes will be more useful in some game types than in others, but some of them didn’t seem fun, while others felt more polished.
All characters can double jump, while some can even hover after double jump. Some characters can leave deployable items (that are all too obvious to see), while others have throwable items or tracking abilities. Having a mix of these gives players the odds for most success. Unfortunately, the character select screen doesn’t do a great job of dividing characters into classes to make that character selection more helpful. Despite all these characters having varied abilities, I found it quite odd that they didn’t include a practice range or tutorial area for the characters. Quite an odd omission. It wasn’t fun to learn how much damage an ability did while three people were shooting at you.
The few maps I played were decent, pretty much identical corridors that led to an open middle area. A few lanes allow the players to navigate with their team, or to infiltrate (with a fun invisible character, after all, who doesn’t love being killed by a random invisible player). The maps left a bit to be desired, though they weren’t necessarily lacking in the fundamental necessities a multiplayer map needs to be playable. There weren’t any bottlenecks, and players had the freedom to approach enemies from different angles if enemy domination was occurring (though I found it difficult to recover from being far behind). While the setting of the maps was varied in their palette, they didn’t quite live up to the sci-fi space scenes set up in the intro movies.
The game modes I played amounted to some of the same old same old, which was quite unfortunate. Overwatch’s escort maps provided heated, intense white-knuckled firefights. Nothing like that exists here. Though they use different names, the gameplay modes were essentially what you find in other games; clash point (round-based, no respawn, objective takeover), area control (domination), cargo run (no respawn extraction mode), takedown (team deathmatch), and trophy hunt (kill confirmed). I spent most of my time playing takedown and trophy hunt, as I found the other modes underwhelming. Clash point was awful. You have to be the first team to take over an objective or clear the enemy team. But you can never take the objective because it’s just one huge brawl in the middle of the map, and then the round is over. This is a team-based game, but with a bit less synergy than Overwatch or Apex Legends, so you have to work together with friends to have any chance of overcoming the enemy team. No one uses microphones, so you’d better hope you have four friends to help.
I enjoyed the UI animation that plays whenever you level up, and the Job Board which provides players with tasks to help level them up. I think that the customization options for each character are great. In addition to full costumes, you can tweak attachments and clothing articles among other things. Considering this is going to be a $40 game, I wonder what the monetization is going to look like going forward. If the game does gain some traction, this could make or break it.
I’m not sold on Concord. The beta isn’t broken, but it needed much more internal testing and brainstorming. The characters feel diverse for the sake of being diverse, and not as if they are part of a cohesive whole (Overwatch and Apex Legends do a nice job with this). It’s a pity because the studio put a lot of effort into the game, but with a $40 price tag and an abysmal player count for the beta, I don’t see it taking off, giving it much of a chance to improve over time. Who knows, I could be wrong and in a few years, I may know every character and each of their kits. But for now, if I were to rate this beta I’d give it a 6, and that’s quite unfortunate for a new triple-A title. The triple-A space is extremely competitive. A game doesn't have to be better than the best to find footing, but it has to be appealing, and Concord isn't there yet.
Posted by: Joe DelFranco - Fiction writer and lover of most things video games. On most days you can find him writing at his favorite spot in the little state of Rhode Island.