We play Concord, the hero shooter from Playstation Studios
The Overwatch formula, the spirit and aesthetics of the Guardians of the Galaxy from James Gunn and the opportunity to expand the PlayStation Studios pantheon by adding dozens of new heroes from both PS5 and PC. Concord follows the path of the Hero Shooters that preceded it and that makes us have strong feelings of déjà vu, but it is a calculated risk on Sony’s part: the grand plan is to repeat the winning move of Helldivers 2. On paper everything that has to do with the game is all successes but, What does Concord bring to the player?
Firewalk Studios knows exactly what to borrow (sometimes brazenly, sometimes more subtly) from other competitive shooters when putting together what will be its first game: each of its characters has a repertoire of weapons and skills that have already worked in other similar games, making it easy for newcomers and inexperienced players to acclimatise without any friction and for those who know what they are coming to play to feel comfortable and at home from the first game. As a Hero Shooter, it doesn’t take risks, but rather plants its flag on solid ground. Something that is noticeable from the first games.
As a result, PlayStation Studios’ intentions become clear after just a few games: Concord He wants to eat the toast OverwatchValorant, Apex Legends or Rainbow Six: Siege using the common denominators and lessons learned from these to their advantage. Is there room for more Hero Shooters? Sony is not only betting on it, but adapting to a reality in which the new priority is not to reach a threshold of units sold, but to fight for the increasingly limited playing time of PS5 and PC players. Something that, as you will see, is more than evident in the progression system and the way of encouraging one game to be linked to the next.
At iGamesNews we had the opportunity to play Concord both on PS5 and PC through a BETA that, for all intents and purposes, makes it very clear that the game is practically ready to go: each of the 16 characters at launch is perfectly defined, the enabled game modes roll by themselves and the progress system, based on a Job Board, also gives us unequivocal clues as to where the whole initiative is headed. And although comparisons are inevitable, I can already tell you that Concord has passed the first test: its gameplay works like a charm.
The golden question: is Concord the PlayStation’s Overwatch?
Concord It is so similar to Overwatch that if PlayStation Studios does not focus on the aesthetics of Guardians of the Galaxy On the big screen, the characters from both games would be almost interchangeable. Well, that and the fact that many of their Freegunners come to fulfill the same roles as the Agents from Blizzard’s Hero Shooter. That’s neither good nor bad, mind you, but something intentional on the part of Firewalk Studios so that the transition between both games and many others is as clean as possible. The key to its success, however, will be in its ability to retain and impress all those who come to take a look.
Sony’s hero shooter isn’t a haphazardly thrown-together pastiche of ideas, mind you. There’s an underlying narrative in which the protagonists are accepted into The Freegunners Guild and that makes them a mix of mercenaries, rebels and bounty hunters with a license to spread chaos and destruction throughout the Galactic Way as long as they don’t get caught red-handed. In fact, the dynamic between them is in tune with a thousand and one references to science fiction films and series, including the aforementioned Marvel space adventurers, the Firefly series or Cowboy Bebop.
That said, Concord doesn’t lose perspective: the fact that there’s a lore behind it, elaborate cinematics and the promise that the story will progress progressively doesn’t overshadow the fact that its alternative as a competitive shooter is on rails: two teams face each other on the same map with objectives as specific as reaching a set number of eliminations, conquering specific points or being the last ones standing in knockout rounds.
From here on, a note: the personality of each of the 16 Freegunners is almost palpable from their design and phrases to their repertoire of movements (without definitive abilities) but it doesn’t go beyond that: there are no graffiti, there are no greetings and, curiously, there isn’t even a communication wheel or a signaling system. In other words, at least in the BETA if you want to draw up a strategy with your teammates you have to open the microphone.
In other Hero Shooters this could be a problem, but the other reality is that the designs and shapes of the maps that were offered during this first contact are not complicated and go for the simple and safe: the areas are delimited and, except for two or three key points, the chosen scenarios are overflowing with colour but lack personality. There are some other decorative details, such as a huge insect that serves as a tunnel, but this does not affect a very simple layout that is hidden by a tiny minimap and that, for practical purposes, hardly helps.
It may seem that all this is a negative point, but in the end it must be seen as a whole and from a certain perspective: Concord wants to be that Hero Shooter designed to welcome those who feel left behind by the rest, who think they are too late to other proposals that have been evolving for years and who simply want to play some games with friends from consoles or PCs. The big problem is that Firewalk Studios has not been the only one to have had that idea.
The challenge of making each new game worthwhile
Although our impressions of Concord They are based on what was played on a BETA, I can already tell you that the project is already better assembled than games that have reached us at launch. Firewalk Studios nos has put all the Freegunners first, but has reserved game modes, training and scenarios for the rest of the test periods and the release of the full game. However, what will really define the success of the initiative is the progression system. Or, rather, the Job Board.
Concord is a game where you progress even when you lose. The Freegunners theme is all about completing assignments that are more or less justified in casual matches, but for all intents and purposes there are very specific objectives and challenges that you complete simply by playing: sprint a certain distance, get a specific number of kills, play 20 rounds in any mode, etc. Ultimately, each of these objectives is converted into experience, which is used to directly obtain unlockables.
The problem, because there is one, is that even though the shooting sensations and the personality of the Freegunners brighten up maps that should be better, sometimes the games end up being too much of an uphill struggle: as in other similar games, it is common that at some delicate moment one of the players decides to withdraw or, perhaps, lose the connection. It is not known. So when that happens, and it is something relatively frequent in Concordthe result is sealed, comebacks – when they occur – become a bitter formality and the progress that gives meaning to the whole and for which we fight goes down the drain.
This puts Firewalk Studios in a difficult position, as they want to make it as easy as possible for new players and those just passing through: should they penalise those who drop out to hold on or should they be replaced by bots? At the moment, neither of these things are possible and we have found that even in a specific game mode it is not even possible to accumulate progress when this happens, which gives rise to the feeling of having wasted time. Something that, to be fair, should not be the case in the final version of Concord.
How much room is there for another Hero Shooter in 2024? It’s clear that the fact that Concord is being backed by PlayStation Studios is a huge advantage, but the plan is for this Hero Shooter to welcome new and seasoned players from other similar titles in a year in which we will also be able to play Marvel Rivals, Vanguard is coming to consoles and, already in PC territory, Valve has a new madness in its hands that it hasn’t even officially presented.
But in the end we’re back to square one: PlayStation Studios has focused on narrative adventures for too long and has been lagging behind for years when it comes to the kind of experiences that most gamers are obsessed with. With Activision Blizzard fully integrated into Xbox Game Studios, the time has come to take the plunge. And, as we’ve said, Concord will be full of clichés, but it’s a calculated risk with ideas that have been working for years. If, in addition, the surprise of Helldivers 2 is repeated, the move will have been a success.
