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Developed by developer Firewalk Studios and published by Sony, Concord aims to shake up the online shooter market.
As a first-person PvP hero shooter, Concord feels like a direct response to everything from Overwatch to Apex Legends to even Destiny. It offers new ways to offset some of the issues that plagued those games, chief among them being how to deliver a story-based narrative that keeps the experience engaging.
What can’t be ignored, however, is some potential innovation in how players form teams in hero shooters, as well as some completely stunning first-person action, a feat that’s unique to very few games of this type.
In theory, Concorde has the potential to be a hit in the Hellraiser 2 series, but only if all of its complex parts fit together properly to attract a large number of early viewers.
Speaking of movement, Concord, powered by the power of Unreal Engine 5, sports some stunning visuals and physics that are a joy to the eyes.
The cutscenes and character models in Concord are beautifully done, and each of the 16 characters has great voices and personality. The lighting and shadows, even the selection screens, are amazingly detailed, and the same philosophy applies to the various maps.
What’s really commendable, though, is the excellent directional audio, which will help with potential competitive scenario surges, especially considering there’s no radar to rely on to know where your enemies are.
As with Destiny and other shooters, the level of detail in the multiplayer maps, skyboxes, and weapons themselves can be distracting, but that’s not a problem as the user interface (UI) is fairly slick and does a good job of displaying key information about a particular game mode.
These characters play different roles. Bazz, who appears in a lot of the game’s promotional materials, is a “Haunt” who wields throwing knives and applies debuffs when hit with her abilities, while her passive ability tags enemies and grants teammates a wall-penetrating attack. Star Child is another face in pre-release materials, she is a “Breacher” who wields a shotgun and gains extra armor when she throws herself into the middle of enemies.
There’s also the Warden (essentially a sniper), the Ranger (scout), the Tactician (stealth), and the Anchor (tank). However, the game actually has a bit of an Overwatch feel to it, as most teams seem to need a tank and a healer, albeit without the polarizing role queues that have plagued Overwatch for years.
Concord is clearly intended to address other issues suffered by previous versions (single-character cheating being a huge one), by trying to combine FPS action with card-based deck-building strategy between turns.
This means that after assembling characters in Crew Builder, you control the “time” of deploying your characters in a match, where deck-building strategy comes to the fore. There, players can insert 12 different Freegunners and variants. These variants of the original characters are equipped with different combat characteristics.
The crew builder has interesting rules, too. Each custom crew must have five unique freelancers, and can stack up to three variations of a specific character.
Then there are the aptly named Crew Bonuses. These are additional stat buffs, such as increased healing or improved mobility, depending on the role the player deploys the Freelancer in. For example, deploying an Anchor in the first round will also increase the amount of healing received by all characters in future rounds.
It remains to be seen whether these rewards are enough to encourage players to team up with others, or if a portion of the player base simply locks on to one character and doesn’t care about the rewards – but the effort is very much appreciated.
Players will use these systems in six familiar game modes, such as Clash Point (control of a single area), Trophy Hunt (team deathmatch, dropping bounty cards to accumulate points), and Cargo Run (a capture-the-flag hybrid).
While there are some obvious balance issues that mean players favor one character over another at launch, it’s common for games like this to rotate the meta via balance passes.
Most importantly, Concord is just pleasure Play it. It has a bit of Bungie’s secret FPS secret in terms of first-person movement and gunplay that 99% of games on the market can’t quite get right. That should be enough to hook players, who may find the systems mentioned above keep them engaged.
Where Concord might win the widest attention from players is in the novel way it presents story and character narratives in a live service like this one.
The game will feature new vignettes each week, fleshing out the characters and moving the story forward within a carefully crafted world. This may sound obvious for a game of this genre, but Concord’s discovery is a big part of it.
That’s a pretty big deal when one of the biggest requests in a game like this is just to learn more about the characters and the universe. While Destiny is currently struggling to move away from the story beats of “seasons” to drier, longer “episodes” and time-limited narratives, Concorde feels like it’s found the right balance that other games may follow in the future.
Parts of the game’s universe are also fleshed out in the form of the Guide to the Galaxy, a lore-based unlock that gradually gives players information and the like as they level up – a nice little bonus on top of the usual rewards you’d get in a game like this.
That being said, the tone isn’t for everyone. Some may crave a more grounded sci-fi setting, but this movie is more in line with the wry, tongue-in-cheek style of Guardians of the Galaxy.
In addition to innovations like game modes and careers, Concord features familiar live service content. There are daily and weekly quests, seasonal missions, and team-based challenges. Unlockables include expected content like costumes, weapon skins and charms, and post-game gestures.
Deja vu or not, everything fits together really well. It felt like a fair grind at launch, and it was fun to customize your character and see how things would pan out after adding some personal touches.
There are some fun, almost necessary extras, like a training mode, a shooting range, and a time trial section. Nothing too crazy, but almost comfortable for players who are used to loading up Overwatch’s shooting range while waiting in line for a match.
Concord has strong post-launch plans that will be made available to players for free, but obviously the jury will be out on those plans later. Planned long-term support is only a good sign, though.
The game also makes sure to shine in necessary areas like options and accessibility menus. Mainstream next-gen features like cross-platform play and cross-platform progression have also been added, and the game generally runs very well.
Concord’s future is worth discussing. There are dozens of successful free-to-play games that have done something similar. Hellraiser 2, which came out earlier this year, was a huge exception to this. Historically, it’s been a big risk to charge $40 for a game in this genre at launch, which is a shame because this game has a great package, but it may flop when it should have soared.
Despite this, Concord has two very, very important strengths. First, it’s very entertaining, with memorable characters and stories.
Secondly, Concord may have found an innovative way to weave story into this gameplay loop and structure. While the obsession with story seems to have doomed Overwatch’s transition to its sequel, adding these short storylines each week is a nice touch.
Any game entering this particular space faces an uphill climb, but Concord has just the right combination of fun factor and systems that address the common issues found elsewhere, and should be able to make great strides and gain a loyal following.
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