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Summary
TheConcordBeta has been familiar, exciting, and surprisingly forward-thinking all around. As a structured glimpse at Sony’s Firewalk Studios-developed competitive team-based FPS,the first real look atConcordis an enjoyable introduction to the fiery 5v5 action to come in the finished game, sans a few expected smudges and connection issues. Most of these should be rinsed away by its proper launch next month – and, hopefully, in the open beta which pops on July 18th – butthe excellent fundamentals atConcord’s core are well worth weathering its growing pains.
Triple-A competitive FPSs are a rare breed, with their development paths arduous and their dependence on a committed audience seemingly make-or-break. It’s a genre which can seem locked in a perpetual desperate scramble for attention and innovation in a field where the smallest shifts feel seismic, with few studios willing to take larger risks and press new shapes into the popular mold.
Concord Release Date, Beta, Characters, & Pre-Order Bonuses
The upcoming hero shooter Concord isn’t far off now, so here’s everything to know about the game and its plans for both beta and full release.
Concord’s Sony pedigree is therefore notable and its ambition clear as day. Now, alongside other gamers with a preorder in tow,Screen Ranthas spent ample time testing its current performance on PC, smashing faces, sniping brutes, and setting fire to unwitting crowds of enemy teams with glee. Overall,we’re confident that FPS fans need to stay tuned to whatConcorddoes in the next few months, because the game has all the makings of a powerful FPS contender, it just needs to pack bleachers and prove itself.
A Full Deck of Freegunners
Concord’s Diverse Roster And Increased TTK Make For A Fun Hero Shooter
When we originally previewedConcordlast month, we only had an abbreviated cast of heroes to choose from, but beta players can now access all 16 ofConcord’s Freegunners.While their personalities don’t seem completely baked-in, their individual kits and mechanics are immediately appealing, including creepy mushroom alien Lark, stealthy assassin Kyps, feisty SMG-toting teleporter It-Z, and the massive yet polite cleaning robot, 1-OFF.
The roster’s multifaceted diversity shines on screen and in play. Even though heroes tend to only have two active abilities apiece, their varied weaponry, stats, sizes, and movement nuances differentiate them greatly, with interesting synergies emerging in that magical manner shown in the best team-based FPSs.Favorites will manifest as the meta solidifies following the proper release, with the “Crew Bonus” system nudging players away from their bad one-trick habits(more on that below).
Team coordination and group-fights can support weaker links in the chain.
Weapons are responsive and tight, recoil feels just-right, andgranting every character a cooldown dodge adds a hectic quality to 1v1s, withConcord’s extended average time-to-kill (TTK) a key element.Overwatchshares it, somewhat, with longer TTK offering an experience where noobs aren’t always instant one-shot fodder for skilled players, so team coordination and group-fights can support weaker links in the chain.
Mighty Maps, With Some Predictable Beta Stumbles
Beta Players Should Expect Some Growing Pains At This Early Stage
TheConcord Betaamounts to only a handful of maps among four game modes: Takedown and Trophy Hunt for respawn matches and Cargo Run and Clash Point for no-respawns. Takedown is functionally Team Deathmatch and Trophy Hunt is synonymous withCall of Duty’s Kill Confirmed, with the no-respawn modes more structured and formal first-to-four bouts. No-respawn rules are straightforward but nothing too crazy, though Crew Bonuses factor into these more significantly than TDM, with winners forced to pick different characters after each round.
While theConcordBetaoffers just a trio of main maps, these are spacious arenas surrounded by viable lanes and tactically distanced health kits. They always feature two-story sections for double-jumpers, dangerous corners and bottlenecks, and gorgeous skyboxes, even if this early game version suffers from some visual bugs and issues on PC.Various textures looked blurry, even when using higher-quality video settings, one of several concerns we’re hoping can be chalked up to day-one wrinkles.
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Outside of that, the beta had a few other snags that couldn’t help but sour this first taste and which compromised more than a few matches. Controls would stop responding correctly and characters would be unable to run, dodge, or attack, only correcting themselves after a death, and dual-monitor setups should adjust display settings prior to playing. Tutorials were also minimal, mostly relegated to dry text archives that barely anyone will read. Furthermore,without a practice/training mode, players have to pick a character and figure them out on the fly, and skill sheets couldn’t even be activated mid-match.
In Space, No One Can Hear You Snark
Concord’s Personality Is Still Shaky, But The Action Will Win You Over
When we covered theConcordpreview, we weren’t very impressed with the video narrative vignettes we saw, and the beta hasn’t improved on that front.It’s still just a tale of scattered snarky-but-sweet spacefaring bounty hunters quipping at each other when they’re not unashamedly blathering exposition and color. The world ofConcordis still too vague at this stage to fully evaluate, but it’s also not interesting at first blush, and the resultant character banter can be admittedly cringe-inducing.
Grouping up is the name of the game, and most wins will see players watching each other’s backs and moving in tandem, blocking off access routes with abilities, empowering their allies to cover each map’s many varied sight lines.
Regardless, these games are all about action, andConcordclearly delivers. Trophy Hunt/Takedown matches are on the faster side for a competitive FPS – up to 10 minutes at maximum, but most games were shorter journeys to 30 points – and combining these asymmetric characters delivers some vibrantly addictive combat. Grouping up is the name of the game, and most wins will see players watching each other’s backs and moving in tandem, blocking off access routes with abilities, empowering their allies to cover each map’s many varied sight lines.
As we previously intuited, formal roles are traded in for something much more flexible inConcord. Some characters are certainly more tank-like, like the fridge-sized 1-OFF and brute-with-a-shotgun Star Child, and defender Emari’s minigun/shield combo can easily capture space and hold it down. Still,shields cannot be penetrated by friend or foe alike, so they’re less integral to the push-and-pull of scoring, and the same could be said of healing.
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This means that healing/tanking only factors into five characters' kits, though none of these offer instantaneous max health, revivals, or a pass-through shield. As a result, any tank/healer inclusions in Concord feel more like small pieces which support the stronger team around, but they’ll struggle to carry games on their own. The plus side:presumably no one will be yelling at their team about how everyone is throwing the game since nobody picked tank.
Concord’s Crew Bonuses Could Be A Revelation
Or: How To Get Better After Every Death
InConcord, roles mostly manifest through the Crew Bonus system. These break down into six titled qualities which grant slight buffs to basic abilities: Ranger improves long-range damage, Warden reduces recoil, Tactition quickens reloads, and so on. The bonuses are applied when a player selects a character, perishes (or survives a round in the no-respawn modes), then swaps to another, stacking buffs on each swap. In other words:Concordoutright rewards players for swapping characters throughout a match, and these small buffs slightly improve their chances.
Is it enough to render these bonus stacks OP? Absolutely not, andone-trickers like those present inValorantmay still feel served all the same, but it’s a nice way to encourage players to experiment and diversify. And, sinceConcordfeatures no “ultimate” cultivation aspects whatsoever, there’s even less reason to commit to just one hero.This helps make the action feel fresher and more dynamic, rather than just devolving into tedious mirror matches between the same two characters on different teams every round. There’s still Vale available for sniper-allegiant fans to play, but maps don’t feature secret sniper’s delight-styled ledges, and her rifle is one single shot at a time.
While deployables do not automatically vanish after rounds inConcord- or even after swapping characters - they can be destroyed by heroes. 1-OFF’s cleaning-obsessive personality isn’t just for show, as he can hoover up deployables near instantly.
Then there are the more oddball characters like Lark, a mushroom alien who drops spore pods that share a slight mobility bonus and damage resist buff to nearby teammates.Since deployables do not reset automatically inConcord, characters like Lark can alter the map over time. With a razorspore gun that is inherently auto-aim, he helps craft loose organic lanes through a map, and is a great option for players who can’t always nail their headshots but want to contribute in other ways.
Final Thoughts on the Concord Beta
There are otherConcordtwists, like special character variant traits. As players level up, new variants are introduced to their crew setup, which can then be organized in the Crew Builder for their matches. The variants we’ve played with aren’t drastically dissimilar – Lennox, for example, can exchange his dodge-roll instant reload for a larger clip instead – but may inspire players to tinker with their ideal setup.It’s anotherConcordoddity that speaks to the game’s ethos, this spotlight on the group rather than the individual, essentially replacing the one-trick competitive FPS paradigm.
It’s a little hard to say if this experiment is fully successful just yet, especially when shoveling through glitches, AFKers, and leavers in the beta. TheConcord Betadidn’t offer any backfill options, and roughly half of the games we played saw rage-quitters thin out the team after running only a few points behind. It’s certain to be a day-one fix for the game to be functional in the slightest, though our teams did manage to win a few matches of 4v5 or 3v5 (and even one 2v5, believe it or not).
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One match saw our team huddling around a nest of healing stations, seed pods, and bubble shields, hunkering down in a turtle formation and forcing the enemy to strategize a way to penetrate the perimeter. In another, faster characters flanked enemy groupings to scatter them, before Star Child dashed in to pound weakened targets. For fans of old-Sombra/Tracer, speedy Bazz will be a revelation; she can temporarily peek through walls, render enemies vulnerable with a spinning blade toss, then chew through player health with a satisfying knife stab.
All in all,Concordis already a terrific FPS which alternates between its slight but considerable genre innovations and its purely joyful combat, but the learning curve for its strangest concepts will need to be effectively explained to its audience. Even so, lone wolves might still shy away from the greater focus on teamwork or increased TTK, but even those folks should find some heroes that really speak to them. It really does seem likeConcordwants to shake up the one-trick gang; it’s time for them to learn how to five-trick.
Screen Rantreceived a PC beta code for the purpose of this preview.
Concord
Firewalk Studios presents Concord, a first-person multiplayer sci-fi shared-world shooter. The game was announced during the May 2023 PlayStation Showcase, with little details divulged on the product. The game is expected to make its debut sometime in 2024.
