Can Sony’s Concord hold its own against other great hero shooters?

Sony and Firewalk Studios’ Unity is coming to PlayStation 5 and PC later this month and faces an uphill battle for success. The team-based hero shooter, unlike many of its competitors, is a paid “premium” title – that is, it is not free to play like competing shooters Overwatch2, Apex LegendsAnd Tom Clancy’s XDefiant.

Unity will soon have more competition on this front; on the PC there is Hero Shooter FragPunkan upcoming free-to-play game from NetEase. Then there is the launch of Riot Games’ Appreciation (available on consoles since Friday) and the upcoming NetEase Marvel Rivals (now in closed beta testing).

The latter two free-to-play games have the kind of built-in fanbase that Firewalk would probably like to have. Appreciation will launch as a mature product with content and improvements for the next four years, and fans of Riot games know that the studio will continue to support their shooter for years to come; League of Legends celebrates its 15th anniversary later this year. About 6 million people play Appreciation daily, after Tracker networkAnd then there is Marvel Rivalswhich stars more than 20 playable Marvel superheroes and villains with decades of history. Marvel RivalsThe beta has around 40,000 players on Steam alone, according to SteamCharts.

Until now, Unity has not established itself sufficiently to compete with these powerhouses. Player numbers during UnityBeta weekends were worryingly low. The game was largely dismissed by a portion of its potential audience because it heavily borrows from Blizzard’s Overwatch and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy characters. What does make Unity What sets it apart from the competition is its price; it’s a $39.99 multiplayer game in a field of free-to-play competitors. It feels like a product of a bygone era; Firewalk started working on its multiplayer game years ago, when Guardians of the Galaxy were still hot and Blizzard was charging money for the original Overwatch.

Firewalk positions the pay-to-play aspect of Unity as positive. The developer said it will not bring a Battle Pass into the gameand will continue to support the sci-fi shooter with new characters, maps, and modes. That would logically make it popular with some players who are tired of the battle pass grind and pervasive monetization tactics of free-to-play games.

But Unity didn’t seem to attract a large audience over the course of the two beta weekends. The game’s first beta testing phase was originally intended for players who had pre-ordered the game, but a last-minute change of plans made it available to anyone with a PlayStation Plus membership. That signaled a lack of pre-order interest in the game, and a second beta testing weekend – open to all players on PS5 and PC – also failed to attract much enthusiasm. According to unofficial data from True Trophies, UnityThe number of players dropped by 8% from the first to the second beta weekend.

Image: Firewalk Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment

I played the Unity Beta and found it to be a solid shooter, with interesting hero kits, unique team dynamics, and a very slick presentation. But the beta didn’t clearly communicate how to play Unity; In contrast to the Marvel Rivals Beta, UnityThe playtest of shipped without a tutorial mode. Understanding the game’s unique mechanics required immersing yourself in a text-based guide and experimenting under the pressure of live team play. Worse still, the initial deathmatch mode included in the beta at launch, which Unity forced players to gain experience first and failed to highlight the game’s character buff system and important team-based dynamics. I had some fun with Unitybut I’ve stuck with it largely out of professional obligation and digging into the game’s systems. I doubt it will sway me away from my other favorite live service games.

I hope that Unity finds an audience and that players who pay $40 for it (and also sign up for a PlayStation Plus subscription) will find many thousands of other like-minded teammates and enemies out there. If not, PlayStation Plus subscribers could benefit in the long run, as Unity seems destined to become a monthly PS Plus gift, if early interest is any indication.

Unity is undoubtedly partly an experiment for PlayStation Studios, part of a larger plan to enter the lucrative live service game market with future titles such as Marathon, FairGame$and yet-to-be-announced online projects from Guerrilla Games and London Studios. Time will tell if the PlayStation fanbase willing to spend money on games like God of War, Ghost of Tsushimaand the Spider-Man games will do this for an untested multiplayer experience like Unity.