Well, f*ck. Here we are. I’m the guy who is passionately against the PlayStation live service game push, and I’m about to write this article about Concord, the new game from Firewalk Studios: a PlayStation live service game. I’ves only vibed with two or three online games in the past, like Warzone (Verdansk only), Star Wars Battlefront 2, and, weirdly, Rocket Arena (RIP).
And now Concord.
This weekend, an early access beta was made available to people who have pre-ordered the game and PS Plus members who have not. I have a feeling the pre-order numbers have fallen short of expectations, and they needed more people in the game for a proper test. I’m so glad they did because I for one, may have been converted into a sale.
I had a ton of fun and didn’t want it to end.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before…
Concord is a 5v5 first-person hero shooter with a cast of colorful Guardians of the Galaxy-like characters, each having different skills and abilities. There are a few different flavors of modes we’ve seen many times. Team Deathmatch (called Takedown) and Kill Confirmed (called Trophy Hunt) allow respawns, but there are also modes similar to Capture the Zone and Plant the Bomb, which is a best-of-7 series with no respawn.
The no respawn, more competitive modes aren’t my jam (because I basically suck and I die really quickly), but I did like that after every successful round in the match, you’re locked out of the character you selected when you were victorious. This encourages experimentation with different classes and abilities, and it ensures (at least in my experience) nobody gets embarrassed four to zip.
There were two other types of game modes that weren’t available in the beta, but I have a guess. The two respawn and no respawn modes were tagged with PvP. That suggests PvE, right? This is unconfirmed, but it would be pretty damn awesome if there were a mode to hone your skills because there wasn’t a training room or anything. The other looks to be another zone capture mode with respawns similar to Hardpoint in Call of Duty, but again, that’s unconfirmed as of now.
The characters were pretty cool, and the designs varied. I vibed with three the most: Kyps, the stealth ninja robot who can cloak herself and can set up sensors to reveal enemies on the map; It-Z, a cat-like alien creature who is hella fast and can teleport; and Teo, the generic sci-fi army man like Hicks from Aliens. What’s also interesting is you will be able to unlock variants of each of the 16 available heroes from launch, which will give them different special abilities and allow you to customize the squad you take into a match.
All in all, the gunplay and movement feel great. It’s satisfying and mostly fair, with larger tank characters natively running slower than the likes of the squirrely It-Z. Most characters have a double jump as well, which makes traversing the world simple and quick. It’s maybe not as quick as an Apex Legends or Warzone, but it doesn’t feel slow. Some characters need balancing, with their TTK far too quick (I’m looking at you, rocket launcher guy!) or slow, but I’m sure that will be ironed out gradually.
The fidelity of the cutscenes is remarkable. The voice acting, facial animations and environments are all on-point. Cutscenes are the way Concord tells the ongoing narrative, and they’re pretty well done. I really enjoyed learning about the various personalities of these characters. I wouldn’t say, though, that the cutscenes will be the aspect of this game that entices me to return, as good as they were.
In-game, the sound effects are terrific. The sounds of the guns aren’t on the level of COD, but we’re talking sci-fi hijinks here, not realism. Abilities all have varied sound effects and they’re all satisfying or even useful. For example, there’s a witchy character who can spew firebombs, with flames lasting on the ground for a few seconds. If the fire damages an opponent, even if you're not looking at them, there’s a sound that lets you know. Similarly, there are notifications when your team kills a player or when a teammate dies, giving you a good indication of how you’re doing without glancing at the score.
Sound and visuals are just so damn well designed.
The Job Board acts like a progression tracker and feeds you daily, weekly, seasonal, and even character-specific challenges to earn XP to level up your reputation level. That stuff is like crack to me. If I can see I’m on 1100m out of 1200m slide distance for the day, you freaking KNOW I’m going back in to slide about and grab the bonus experience.
Monetisation is still a mystery as far as I can see, but judging by the content in the Job Board section, there’s likely to be a season pass with cosmetics for each character. Here’s where it could go sideways, though. If they offer variant characters on the season pass, then it could be classified as a form of pay-to-win. Not cool. But that’s wild speculation and a “let’s wait and see.”
What I can attest to is the performance of Concord. I didn’t experience any crashes, frame drops, screen tearing, clipping in the environment, or even sound glitches. I also had no issues with connectivity or server queuing. Hell, in the five hours I spent in Concord across the weekend, I only reached a one-minute wait time for a game once, averaging around fifteen seconds. It was seamless, like it was begging me to have one more game with so little friction to entry.
Look, I know I’m not the best person to give you the low-down on new live service FPS offerings. I don’t play them often, and I’m not the biggest fan of the genre. However, I can tell you I had oodles of fun playing this over the past few days, and I wouldn’t have given it a second look if Firewalk hadn’t offered beta entry with PS Plus for free.
And that could be everything you need to know. It’s $40 to buy when there are other FPS Hero Shooters out there or upcoming ones like Marvel Rivals available to play for free. There’s an expectation of free-ness for this type of game for a lot of people. I certainly wouldn’t have thought about splurging on it without this weekend.
So I implore you to give this a chance. See what you think of it for yourself before writing it off. The gunplay and traversal is great, the characters are memorable, and it’s freaking beautiful! Add to that, in my experience, perfect performance, then you have the makings of a really solid game.
Check it out for free this weekend from Thursday, July 18, at 10 am PDT to Sunday, July 21. Why the heck not, eh?
