Concord was first teased last year with a simple video showing a ship sailing through space. I think a hamburger was involved. Anyway, after watching 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 was going to be something like an MMO, a la Destiny . I was on board for a new experience regardless, 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 so glad that Concord plans to continue with its world lore and ongoing story, as some of my favorite FPS games like Overwatch and Apex Legends do so seasonally as well. Moreover, every season that is released will be free for all players, who just need to buy the game and enjoy future updates.
While I enjoyed my time in the limited hands-on preview overall, I have some concerns about the Concord’s longevity and what it has to offer. Concord’s meat and potatoes formula is a fairly standard 5v5 setup, 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 to feature respawns in the match and was essentially Kill Confirmed’s team deathmatch.
Cargo Run, meanwhile, was a single match where the objective was to run to the center, steal a Blue Buddy package, and plant it in one of two locations. If planted, the enemy team could go and stand on top of the package to distribute it and take it back. And finally, Clash Point was a single round-based game mode, with the objective being to control the single capture zone across the map multiple times to claim victory.
The single life modes were hard to warm up to while still getting to know the game, as failure obviously means you’re out of the action for a bit. And while Concord is a pretty straight-forward FPS, I have one major criticism just two months out from its August 24 launch: in the version I played, the movement felt extremely jerky and took a while 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 abilities that they bring to the team, so every time you switch to a new character, you’re trying to learn and configure your brain to how they work. . So you can imagine it gets a bit disorienting.
And while Concord will be released on PC day and date with PS5, I was only able to watch this on PS5 with a controller, and so with that in mind, I’d say the gameplay is very reminiscent of Destiny and Halo. Again, it’s incredibly floaty, which can be a fun element if done well. However, the way the preview build, featherlight jumps, and hang times felt didn’t match the amount of fast-paced combat that could happen at any given time 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 an odd outlier. Grenades also feel light when launched into the air, the various abilities in Halo all have the same weight and pacing to them, and the pacing of the match reflects the balance between the game’s core mechanics. Players in Halo, even in competitive ranked matches, heal over time after avoiding damage for a while.
Similarly, Destiny is a more PvE related game and therefore doesn’t need the overly nimble mechanics that Halo or Concord need in PvP combat. Even in PvP combat in Destiny, regular TTK is slower as combat can be drawn out due to different class abilities allowing for slower or faster gameplay depending on how players choose to engage (ie more direct or reserved). Each class also has different movement abilities and healing abilities that ensure the pace of the match stays steady throughout.
So the problem with Concord, at least in this preview, is that it takes bits and pieces from games like Halo and Destiny and mash them together into a formula that just hasn’t come together for me yet. Concord actually uses the same kind of dodge animation from Destiny that pulls you into third person. While I liked this element in Destiny, in Concord it doesn’t quite work because there’s 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 through late entry, can punish you heavily.
Sony says there will be six maps in total at launch, so perhaps some of the game modes will feel more paced and optimized than others when they ship. But as things currently stand, most of the maps felt very strangely unformed. Some lanes were too long or large and barely saw turns, while the second lane on another map would just feel downright small and cause extended teamfights due to its claustrophobic size.
Concord promotes its competitive nature and fast-paced combat. I like all of this, but I found that the competition runs the risk of being off-putting to new players trying to learn the game because most of the game modes are focused on single life.
It’s important to note that even if you are an exceptional player, Concord is not a game that allows for many 1v2 fights to be won. Unlike a game of Apex or Halo where you can outsmart your opponents and win in 1v2 scenarios, Concord is so much a team game that you are unable to succeed if you are alone. While this IS The point of FPS team games, it is quite punishing for modes like Trophy Hunt where you are encouraged to go out and get kills for the objective.
Another reason why these one-sided 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. Usually, each class has its own health stats that you can expect every character in that tag to have.
Taking a look at Overwatch, for example, most Tanks have a base stat somewhere between 525 and 700 (with in-game shield or armor combos for specific characters that have them like DVA and Reinhardt). In Concord, it was incredibly hard to tell what exactly the health pool was for any of the classes since nothing was really set in stone with their system.
For example, 1-Off is a cute garbage-sucking robot and is definitely a tank character with his big physique and clumsy movement and strong weapons that has 300 health. However, Teo, who is basically a DPS that plays like your traditional ground soldier character without the tank qualities, has 220 health as a Concord Ranger class. But Roka, another character who is basically a DPS, is classified as Haunt and has 170 health.
What these non-traditional classes mean is extremely confusing. In the preview, we weren’t given details about each class and the meaning of the terms, but it all seems a little arbitrary when the health groups and damage numbers vary so much, causing an even greater breakdown of game balance.
Overwatch also uses the system to ensure that there is a list for the number of characters allowed by each class. Concord currently does not use such a mechanic and allows players to use whatever character they want, as these class systems are not traditional. While this is fun in theory, in my short experience playing a competitive game like Concord, it doesn’t work out very well.
Another reason why Concord is so much a team-based game is that each character has their own running speed and damage output. It could be argued that this is an extension of the lack of clear classes, but I wanted to focus on this as its own balancing issue. DPS for characters is very important as you are allowed to have a team with whatever character you want.
There were some definitely “overpowered” characters in the preview build that you really needed on your team if you wanted to win, especially in Trophy Hunt. Let’s look at the Freegunner rocket launcher, Roka.
She is able to deal 43 direct hit damage as she fires rapidly and sets her target on lock almost instantly. After doing a few spins, there seems to be no real answer to how far Roka’s splash damage is, and how much it consistently does. So far I’ve seen it hit from a good distance for 12 damage, then hit for 27 damage closer to the target. Roka also has a total of eight missiles to use before having to reload, so those numbers add up.
Comparing this to Overwatch’s Pharah, another character who uses rocket launchers, she only deals 40 damage to an enemy when she is a directly hit, with her splash damage being about half that. She also only has six missiles before she needs to reload and has no ability to block fire.
Of course, comparing these two games head-to-head isn’t fair to either, but it’s important to note the difference between balancing. It’s entirely possible that over time, Concord will be able to better understand how to maintain its balance. But the way it currently stands, I’m worried about the more casual player experience and overall approach.
The option to crossplay with PC and PS5 will be available at launch, which is good news for gamers like me who have friends on both platforms, but it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. The preview build I played featured heavy aim assist on the controllers. It was most evident in Roka, the rocket character, since the weapons were locked. I would find myself actually having to rip my thumb off to get it to go away from the closest enemy I didn’t even want to target.
The other characters I played didn’t show nearly as much assist for aggressive purposes, but I could feel the magnetization there, which was a little disappointing and unsettling considering the crossplay option would be enabled at launch. While yes, you could argue that on PC you can make faster on-the-fly movement adjustments, the constant battle between controller aim assist vs. keyboard and mouse movement just seems to be aggravated here.
Fortunately, there are still a few months left until Concord launches – still some time for the balancing and tweaking of every aspect of the game that always happens at this stage of the development process. Fingers crossed Concord is able to tighten up its floating controls and address its character balancing before it drops on August 24 for PS5 and PC.