I went from a Concord doomer to believer but I still don’t think it’s enough

I didn’t come into last weekend’s closed beta of Concord with much confidence. The night before jumping in, I’d expressed my concerns to my regular Overwatch team about Sony’s entry into the hero shooter category.

There was nothing overly wrong with Concord’s reveal at May’s State of Play. There was an underlying sense that Sony wanted it to be a big reveal, giving the game a huge portion of the show and an expensive-looking cinematic.

However, when that cinematic finished, everyone dealt with the whiplash of realizing this wasn’t a co-op story-driven RPG, but the latest entry in a pretty crowded hero shooter genre that has established monoliths. For those not into Overwatch, Valorant, or Rainbow Six Siege, this is a well-served, and admittedly, out-of-fashion genre. And for Overwatch, Valorant, or Rainbow Six Siege players – well, they have those games already.

However, thanks to a (potentially now abandoned) push into live service games, Sony now finds itself on the verge of entering the space and making some noise. And as someone with 3000 hours of game time in Overwatch, I’m contractually obligated to play every competitive hero shooter that hits the market. 

Surprisingly though, I’ve walked away feeling a little different than I expected – even if there’s a broader sense of worry underlying my feelings.

The Pros and Concord

There’s something to Concord. A lot of people have written it off, which I get. I had too. However, last Saturday, I sat down intending to play a couple of games for this preview feature, and quickly, five hours had passed. There is a compelling hook here that works well within the flow of the game. 

Despite it apparently being a sticking point for some, I think within the context of the world it’s building, Concord’s characters work both aesthetically and also as hero designs. Firewalk Studios knows what it’s doing. While this may be the developer’s debut game, it has a rich team of multiplayer experts (reportedly many from early Destiny 2). 

It shows, too. There’s some real innovation on display here, and the game feels fluid. I found myself getting into cycles of play, running from fight to fight, taking stops at health packs. Once I’d discovered these rotations, that’s where I had the most fun.

The gunplay also feels pretty tight. It avoids a lot of the pitfalls of new hero shooters, which often suffer from sometimes floaty, and less refined weapon feels, causing a disconnect between your shots and hitting your target. (I’d argue this is Marvel Rival’s biggest hurdle right now.)

Abilities also flow into each other nicely. This is something that Overwatch remains unmatched at. That crisp way you can activate abilities, and it feels instantaneous. Concord isn’t at that level of refinement yet, but if it does have a successful future, it feels like the developers could get there. 

That’s the underlying feeling I got from the hours I put into Concord – this was made by a team that understands multiplayer games and how to make them feel good. The time to kill feels a little laborious, and the balancing of certain heroes feels out of whack, but these can be refined – and I suspect many players haven’t tapped into the power of some characters yet, either.

I need a hero

As a Sombra main in Overwatch 2, I thought I’d really push the boat out and try something different, by gravitating to the Purple lady, who has gadgets, disrupts abilities, and goes invisible. 

That’s a joke. For the most part, Concord does a pretty good job of avoiding the trap of “oh, this one is supposed to be Tracer, this one is Reinhardt, this one is Mercy.” Some characters feel like they may have started in the same ballpark of archetypes of heroes from other games –- but they play very differently. IT-Z is somewhat analogous with Tracer, like Kyps is with Sombra, and Roka is with Pharah. 

Kyps really started to click for me, though, when I learned her rotation of coming out of invisibility, shooting someone for a while, and then reentering stealth and running to a health pack. She’s different from Sombra, slower and less deadly, but her loop is pretty compelling. Inevitably, after taking over a lobby as Kyps, I’d see other players on the enemy team trying to take on the hero (who has a low health pool), completely unsure how to play her. It felt great to have begun to understand and master one of these heroes. It clicked.

Differentiating it from others in the genre too, Concord is more of an arena shooter. In the moment-to-moment, it feels like it has its DNA more with the likes of Lawbreakers or Quake Champions (I told you, I played and remember all hero shooters). That isn’t the most prestigious company, but I’ve always felt there is a way to make that more classic, Unreal Tournament-esque shooter work with heroes. There’s a universe among the multi-verse where Concord cracks that nut finally.

That’s not to heap total praise onto Concord though. It also has some very bold ideas trying to define itself that end up feeling quite bizarre.

Cut the cord

When it comes to the game’s structure, Firewalk Studios has taken some big swings to try to spice up the grind and encourage players to play in different ways. It’s easy to commend the devs for trying things to help differentiate Concord. 

For example, the game has the idea of crews, where you try to make a roster of the heroes to play with. Within that, you can then get certain buffs by switching characters and roles every time you die. It serves to encourage players to get to know the heroes and build their squads around these buffs – but it simply doesn’t work. 

Creating an identity around a hero in a hero shooter is one of the most compelling hooks in these games. I think of myself as a Sombra/Doomfist main in Overwatch. A Fade/Yoru main in Valorant. An Oryx/Iana main in Rainbow Six: Siege. Finding that identity is whats alluring. 

Concord runs counter to that. It wants players to get decent with a much deeper pool of heroes. To me, you’re either ignoring the buffs and nerfing yourself, or you’re encouraged to toss these characters aside, never really investing in their identity. It’s a nice try to do something different – but to me, it feels like a design dead end that’s flawed at conception. This is a hero shooter – let me care about the hero I’m playing, and master their abilities – not force me to become a jack of all trades.

Variants, on the other hand, are a more promising vein for the game. These are essentially different versions of heroes you can earn. These unlock new color palettes, but more importantly, offer different passive buffs that alter a hero. The idea of modular passives is interesting, and somewhere Firewalk might be able to differentiate itself from the competition. That said, it’ll have to be careful with the balancing around these and their availability. 

For example, it’s going to feel really bad if you’re getting destroyed by a variant with a strong passive that was only available months ago, and you have no avenue to get it yourself. It could create a world of haves and have-nots that Firewalk Studios will have to grapple with if the distribution of these variants isn’t spot on.

The not-so-freegunners

Despite that – I’ve walked away from Concord interested in following its journey. There’s a sheen of quality here that comes from developers who know how to make good multiplayer games.

That said,  I still worry about Concord’s longevity. Its pricing model worked in 2016 for Overwatch, but it feels incompatible with the current landscape. It needs to be able to bring in players to give it a shot for free, rather than expecting them to spend $39.99 upfront to see if they might be into it. 

I get it. It’s genuinely admirable. A live service that you pay one fee for, and you get all the content as it rolls out. That’s what people have been begging for for years. This 100% feels like a Sony initiative, and to their credit, it really worked for Helldivers 2 earlier this year. Selling a game upfront and then running a compelling live service within that is an awesome idea (as long as the cosmetic microtransactions remain very reasonable, like in Helldivers 2.)

But, the reality is, that’s not the market we live in. Free-to-play dominates the landscape. You can’t ignore that. People need to be clamoring for that experience enough to spend that cash. You can’t charge them $40 and expect them to just be ‘trying it out’. 

This is all a shame too. Concord has something going on. There’s been genuinely excellent work put into the character design, presentation, and story elements. In another world, this takes off. But we have to live in this world. People need to be convinced that this is a multiplayer game worth caring about, and that’s really hard when the barrier to entry is real-world money to even see if they like it at all. 

Concord has a place. It’s not like the other big players in the genre, and I played for five hours straight at the weekend without blinking an eye. This can carve out its corner of the market as a hero shooter with unique ideas. 

I just don’t think the hypothetical audience of someone who wants to get deep into a new hero shooter, loves this aesthetic and is willing to pay $40 upfront to experience it exists. I want to be proven wrong. This is a pretty good hero shooter. Something that could develop into its own strong voice and offer something different for the FPS multiplayer genre. This is clearly a talented team with a lot of very good ideas. But in a genre that has mighty mainstays demanding people’s attention, I just worry if it will be able to break through that noise.