Concord is the latest title released by Firewalk studios, this company formed in 2018 and is a part of Playstation Studios, all that is to say that they have Sony’s backing and money when releasing and publishing titles. Concord is their first title to be published under Sony, aiming to break into the hero-shooter, competitive genre which is dominated by Valorant, Overwatch 2 and Apex Legends.
The Shooting And General Gameplay Feels Amazing
Getting right to the most important part, the shooting in Concord feels perfect, Firewalk studios does have ex-Destiny developers and those who played Destiny will surely notice the gun recoil, the animations when shooting the hand cannons, the crossbow or the machine gun. The hit registration feels solid with each kill giving a satisfying feedback to the player.
The different types of characters have different kinds of movement speed associated with them, giving the player more varied gameplay when choosing a different character and each of them also having a distinct, signature gun so that it never feels like two different characters feel the same to play.
Turning and aiming feels snappy and responsive, making it all the more satisfying when those close call, corner shootouts are one due to better aiming skills. Almost all of the characters can dive on and double jump, encouraging players to explore and find some nook or unorthodox cover to shoot or drop down from to get the jump on unsuspecting enemies.
Competitive Play Was The Priority
It is clear Firewalk intended for this game to stand among the greats in competitive play with their Rivalry game mode. This is the competitive mode for players to test their skills in utilizing their character’s kit, since utilities persist between rounds this forces the player to reconsider when to use their special abilities or gadgets unlike in regular play. Players won’t be allowed to pick the character they won the round with, this being an attempt to get players to learn how to play other characters.
What feels so confusing though is the team selection system, before each match as teammates select their characters they have to choose one of the 6 archetypes the game fails to tell you about, the player has to find a description and then remember the icon that represents the archetype and then fail again to choose the correct archetype due to the insanely minimal time given.
Another baffling system is the crew system, this allows the player to gain passive bonuses, the “crew” in this case isn’t the teammates you have queued up with, it is the character roster you have to make before getting into the gamemode. Another attempt at trying to encourage the player to explore more than one character. The general goal being that at the last round you’ll have a considerably buffed character, but these buffs will only apply to your character, not the entire team.
Good Gun Play But Terrible Maps
Concord’s developers did get the gun play right but the maps aren’t that great or interesting to be honest, each feeling like some sort of lazy reshuffle of the last map like some rooms have been shifted from point A to point B and they called it a different name. Almost all of them feature the same set of assets with the metal light orange walls plaguing every corner. In terms of functional design the maps are built in 3 way lanes and teams meet in the middle to start the fight, but in terms of aesthetic and anything relating to the lore of the game, the maps feel woefully barren.
Okay, So Why Is No One Playing It?
Even though this game has Sony’s backing and Firewalk themselves have promised weekly fully rendered cutscenes that would give narrative direction to the story of Concord it seems no one is interested. The player count for the game peaked at less than 2500 players, to put it into context, it had less players than the disaster that was Gollum and Arkane Studios’ Redfall. Redfall and Gollum were terrible games, they had performance issues, weird systems that discouraged players, and a non-existent story etc. Concord is not at all any of that, it isn’t the perfect game, but it has good gameplay and almost no performance issues so why is it failing?
A Live Service Game’s Appeal
Pricing this game at 40 dollars could’ve worked previously, since that is what happened with Overwatch but now this game is up against the likes of Valorant, Apex Legends, Overwatch 2 and the most recent Marvels Rivals and Valve’s Deadlock, all of these games mentioned are free-to-play, maintaining their profits through character skins and various forms of loot boxes. These games aren’t by any means perfect either but they offer a more complete experience than Concord is doing with the 40 dollar price tag.
It feels like this price point was enough to halt anyone giving it a shot, why pay 40 dollars for a game no one is showing any interest in when the alternate solutions have a large stable player count and offer a similar experience with no price tag on it. Maybe if the 40 dollar price tag wasn’t there or if Sony had better marketed the game it could’ve turned out differently but as of now it seems poised to be on the highway to the graveyard of live service genre.
