Ahead of its launch on August 23rd, we finally got our hands on Concord, the live action hero shooter from Firewalk Studios. Sony’s massively multiplayer online game wasn’t met with the best first impressions when it debuted in the Game statebut now that we’ve had some time with the game, will this be the live service’s next hit?
Confidence is the name of the game here, and despite the public’s supposed attitude towards hero shooters, Concord boasts all the graphical and musical bombast you’d expect from a Sony experience. We love good UI and menu design, and Concord has all of that in spades, and there’s a certain “big” energy to it all that we found infectious.
The beta includes access to three modes, four maps, all 16 characters and a selection of unlockable cosmetics – none of which will make it to the full release. What we have here is basically Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed and a round based Capture the Point mode. It’s nothing you haven’t played before, so where Concord tries to stand out is in its characters and gameplay.
The first-person shooter is incredibly tight and in places reminiscent of Destiny 2’s floating gameplay – which is no surprise considering the ex-Bungie talent on board at Firewalk. Across the 16 characters, you have your typical tank, healer, aggressor and support archetypes, but where Concord really excels is in the gameplay loops you’ll find within each character.
Teo is all about using smoke bombs to reduce visibility and then using his scope to spot enemies and finish them off with his cluster bomb. 1-Off sends his Garbage Bombs to thwart enemies, using his vacuum to protect the squad. Jabal is a frontline healer who can check enemy health with his seeker rifle, heal the team with his healing aura, and deal decent damage with his hunter orb.
The list goes on, but like any good heroic shooter, the fun lies in playing your part and supporting your team – something that was surprisingly present in our randomly matched sessions over the weekend. Of course there will be favorites, like the high-damage Haymar or the self-healing Lennox, but it was nice to see such varied selections across matchups, with no clear favorites. Firewalk has seemingly produced a balanced roster of heroes that all have something to offer.
The most surprising aspect of Concord, however, is how it manages to strike a balance between a hero shooter with a long time to kill and rotating objectives and an arena shooter like XDefiant, where you’re still able to complete impressive streaks of murders.
It is in that fundamental difference that we think Concord can thrive because it’s a game-defining loop that we just couldn’t get enough of. Abilities recharge fairly quickly and can be replenished after kills, so there’s a much more dynamic feel to the battlefield. We’re notoriously guilty of keeping our ‘right moment’ skills in hero shooters, but here every moment is a right moment – and even if it isn’t, you won’t be penalized too much for it.
Health is also a big factor in all of this. Your health won’t regenerate naturally, so instead you’ll need to visit one of the few health pickup points or rely on a healing teammate. It’s not something we were too keen on to begin with, but it eventually affects how you play and adds a layer of tension to Concord’s arc.
It’s a fantastic start to a game we here Thrust square we’re incredibly excited, but after our time with the beta, there are still a few things we’re not sure about. For one, if you’ve played the beta, you’ll have done a lot of levels, but it’s not particularly clear what you’re leveling up for. Daily, weekly, and seasonal challenges add XP, which increases your profile level, but completing matches also increases your character-specific level. Cosmetics seem to be the focus, but if what we have here is a sign of what’s to come, it’s definitely rare. Thankfully there will also be Freegunner challenges, which can unlock character variants with different passive abilities, which we imagine will be a good reason to stick around for “one more game.”
Then there are the weekly vignettes. What we’ve witnessed so far are some high-quality scenes that perhaps lack any defining features. They’re just there for the moment, but we’d hardly expect to fall in love with these characters from day one. We’re extremely interested to see how sustainable and how effective this approach to storytelling is, because from the little we’ve had so far, Firewalk is clearly trying to build a vast lore.
Really, though, our biggest problem with Concord is that its current modes don’t last long enough to really get into the action. Both TDM and Kill Confirmed modes only require 30 points for each team and are often completed within five minutes. Of course, we don’t currently have access to the full list of mods, but hopefully something more substantial will be available post-launch. As it stands, his matches are very small, where just as things are really heating up, they’re over.
The Concord is an incredibly lively and powerful shooter that almost feels ready to go. There were no server crashes, lagging matches, glitches, or anything like that during the beta weekend. It’s a polished experience that feels ready to join the Sony lineup, and one that we think gamers should give a shot. Is it the most original take on the hero shooter genre? No, but it’s a polished, premium product that already has a solid foundation to grow from. There are a few questions we have that we suspect won’t be answered until the full release, and we’d like to leave them a little longer, but as it stands Concord just rose to the top of the most anticipated.
Did you check out the Concord beta? What are your thoughts so far? Tell us about your Freegunning activities in the comments below.