Concord is Going to Get Lost in its Own Space

Concord is an upcoming hero shooter developed by Firewalk and PlayStation Studios. When Firewalk unveiled the gameplay for Concord at the recent PlayStation State of Play, it was a lengthy showcase, and did have the usual level of confidence that PlayStation puts behind all of their titles. With impressive looking gunplay, and a high bar of quality in its visual fidelity, motion capture and voice acting in the cutscenes and gameplay, it all showed something that could be promising. So, when the game’s beta was announced, everyone was excited to jump in and see what it would be like, me included thanks to being given a code by Senior Staff Writer of Lords of Gaming, Gene Schaffmeir.

After playing off and on and only getting to level 6 in the beta at the time of writing this, I can only say that the ratio of what Concord does well, as opposed to what it doesn’t, is not generous. But let us start with one before the other.

Great Gunplay, and Unique Abilities

Where Concord stands out, is in its gameplay. Where the movement feels very natural, with every character having a dodge and double jump to help get around and maneuver in shoot outs. It all feels very fluid, almost directly in line with the movement from Destiny 2. This goes hand in hand with the gunplay that all feels very good, the submachine guns and automatic rifles have a good amount of recoil to feel believable. While revolvers and chain guns pack a nice punch thanks to the audio design in the game.

Another part of the game that stands out are the abilities and how each character is built around them. One character that had the chain gun also has a shield to provide cover for you and your teammates, making them the ideal tank in the group. While some characters have more normal abilities, like throwing a knife, or healing themselves, or being able to throw smoke bombs and see through the smoke to get the jump on the enemy. The variety even extends to more alien designs, where one character had an ability to return to a spot to avoid being killed while being risky, and another being able to throw an orb to transport themselves around more quickly while jamming enemy weapons with another ability.

All of this feels very good, and everyone has unique passives. Such as being able to reload instantly when dodging, and the dodge works to throw off focused fire and get away. But unfortunately, this is the extent of what I was able to enjoy in the beta. Concord has a lot of structural issues that I doubt can be improved before launch, and despite the gameplay feeling good, the rewards and everything in-between already feel outdated and nearly meaningless.

A Hollow Ship

Concord is suffering from a case of style over substance. As when you are playing the game it will feel nice, and if you are playing with friends, it will be enjoyable. But the hardcore that will try this game due to its presence in the already dominated hero shooter genre, there is a lot missing that weekly or seasonal cutscenes will not fix.

For starters, the beta lacked any form of real tutorial or a shooting range so you could try out characters and understand how the game works, which for a competitive shooter is a massive oversight. Especially for the elimination mode that is in the beta that has its own specific objective that feels pointless. If by design the game mode has no respawn and you just have to win a certain number of rounds, why bother with an objective if hunting down the enemy team will end that round faster. Another problem with the game structurally is that if a player drops out of the match, no one can matchmake into it, and no bots are provided to fill in the blanks. This can lead someone to be the last man standing the moment someone either disconnects, or leaves out of frustration, causing a domino effect.

One final problem is the customization, seeing as I only got to level 6, I was able to see that the characters have variants you can unlock. These variants only seem like they have a color palette swap for their clothes, and a change in passive. Like the aforementioned character who can dodge and reload his guns now having more ammo for his guns but losing the dodge and reload passive in the process. It does offer a choice, but if certain mechanics of each character are integral to how they play, a more meaningful passive should be given to incentivize that swap. Aside from that, the clothing customization is basic, but there is no place to see what all you can unlock for each character, which can incentivize people who like a certain character to keep playing as them. While this is a beta, these are issues that need to be addressed by launch.

Time To Kill and Accessibility

As someone who has played a fair share of hero shooters, one thing that is important to talk about is how Concord feels more like Halo or Destiny 2 in terms of how quick you can expect to take someone down. It is more fast paced which does help the game feel more exciting in gameplay, but the abilities of each character feel more strategic, and the time to kill counteracts that for Tanks, or support characters. Leaving only the normal feeling characters that move quicker in comparison to the tanks to be more viable picks. Why use tactics and strategy if each character has anywhere from 180-300 health, and you would only need one or two full clips from any gun to take someone down.

When it comes to accessibility in Concord, there are some great options here. There is a unique feature for the Dualsense controller where it uses the Haptic Feedback to simulate the voice of the characters speaking in cutscenes only. There are options to change the color highlights of friends and foes, HUD and UI scaling, and text size, but no option to change the text color specifically. You can also turn off motion blur and use speech to text if you do not want to be in voice chat with other players, but no option for text to speech if you cannot speak. One problem I have with the HUD scaling, however, is that unlike the UI scaling, you cannot see how big things will be on screen until you load into a match.

Smooth Performance, and a Clunky Menu

I played Concord on the PlayStation 5, and it ran very well at what seems to be a rock solid sixty frames per second. While also having a crisp and clear image, no noticeable blurriness. But the menus in the game need a lot of work. Not only is the presentation underwhelming, but it just does not feel good to navigate through. No part of the menu pops out or feels fun, which navigating through the menus in even a title like Paladins or Overwatch 2 feels snappy, and more interesting.

As far as loading between matches goes, there is a noticeable wait time. You have to wait in the selection menu, then watch a cutscene of the ship going to a planet, then watch another cutscene of a ship descending into orbit of said planet, then watch a final cutscene of the characters loading in before starting the match. It can take anywhere from a little under a minute to a minute and a half. Which for a next generation title, feels clunky.

Closing Remarks

Concord as it stands in the beta, feels like the multiplayer mode for an already existing game that doesn’t exist. It is planning to be sold at nearly half the price of a full video game and will have microtransactions despite that upfront cost to keep its live service going. But considering titles like Valorant, the upcoming Marvel Rivals, and even the aforementioned Paladins, and Overwatch 2 all being free to player with a similar microtransaction focused business model, it is a hard sell that I cannot bring myself to sway you towards.

If Concord does interest you, the beta on PlayStation 5 will be available to try on July 18th, to the 21st.

Concord will launch on August 23rd of this year for $39.99 on Steam and PlayStation 5.