Releasing Aug. 23 on PlayStation 5 and PC, it’s the first game from first-party Sony developer Firewalk Studios, composed of veteran creators of multiplayer shooters. PlayStation has been trying to shore up its multiplayer offerings, and “Concord” hopes to address a weak point in Sony’s catalogue. The game was playable in beta form this past weekend and will be again this weekend, starting Thursday.
Firewalk’s pedigree shines through in the gameplay. The hero shooter genre offers characters that fill different roles with unique abilities all mixed into a five-player team to finish objectives. A cat girl in “Concord” flips and zips around the arena faster as she wields her submachine gun, while a giant armored woman plays defense. If you can’t tell, I haven’t learned the character names yet, and we’ll get to that point soon.
The game feels like a mix between the floaty movement of a warlock from “Destiny” and the slow, deliberate ground movement of “Valorant,” another popular hero shooter by Riot Games. It’s like an expertly crafted dish with distinct flavors for well-trained tongues. It’s comforting, familiar and executed well.
The problem with “Concord,” at least from what I can tell from these early offerings, is that it does everything just well enough, but doesn’t have that near-intangible juice to make this sizzle and stand out from others in the genre. The gameplay design of “Concord” copies the hero shooter genre popularized by “Overwatch,” the blockbuster Blizzard Entertainment esport game released in 2016. Unfortunately for “Concord,” the Overwatch series continues to be popular and has spawned several copycat games, including “Valorant” and another one starring “real” superheroes in “Marvel Rivals,” releasing later this year.
Sony’s distinguishing flavor for “Concord” appears to be its characters and narrative writing. The game promises weekly episodes of cinematic narrative, displayed in high-fidelity motion capture with facial animation actors. “Overwatch” or “Valorant” can’t claim a similar level of production. But these characters lack charisma. Much has been said about how “Concord” seems to lift the “Guardians of the Galaxy” archetypes right out of the James Gunn films, and it’s true. The sharpest example: The Drax-like character’s name is Star Child. The dialogue and character chemistry so far hews close to the snarky vernacular of a Disney-tinged superhero story, and it’s really hard to remember who any of these people are.
“Concord” exposes the risk of high-budget game development. These days, games can take up to five years to finish. Chasing modern trends in AAA video games runs the risk of sounding several years behind by the time the game releases. Moreover, there are obvious needs in the multiplayer marketplace that could be filled outside of the hero shooter genre. Earlier this year, Sony did just that by publishing “Helldivers 2,” a game that evokes the simplicity of early 2000s multiplayer games. At 12 million copies sold so far, it is now Sony’s fastest-selling game ever and is 2024’s best-selling game.
At $40, “Concord” enters an already crowded market. The gameplay is solid and it will find an audience, but if “Concord” wants to be a hit, it needs to better distinguish its characters, story and writing. The jury will be out until that first weekly episode drops on launch.
