Concord was initially teased last year with a simple video that showed the ship cruising through space. I think there was a hamburger in it. Anyway, after watching that short teaser, I was honestly expecting to see a story-based FPS – this is a first-party game from Sony, after all – but maybe it would be something like an MMO a la Destiny. Regardless, I was on board for the new experience, but then I was somewhat surprised to find out that Concord is actually a 5v5 shooter.
And now that I’ve played it, I’m very happy that Concord plans to keep up with its world lore and ongoing story, as some of my favorite FPS games like Overwatch and Apex Legends do so seasonally as well. In addition, every season that comes out will be free for all players who just have to buy the game and enjoy the future updates.
While I overall enjoyed my time in the limited hands-on preview, I have a few concerns about the Concorde’s longevity and what it has to offer. Concord’s meat-and-potatoes recipe is a pretty standard 5v5 setup, with two teams choosing their preferred character before jumping into an objective-based team battle.
During the demo, I was able to play three of the six modes that will be available at launch: Trophy Hunt, Cargo Run, and Clash Point. Trophy Hunt was the only one that featured in-match respawns and was basically a Kill Confirmed team deathmatch.
The Cargo Run, meanwhile, was a one-life match where the goal was to run to the center, steal a Blue Buddy pack, and place it in one of two spots. If it gets planted, the opposing team could go and stand on top of the deck to dispel it and take it back. Finally, Clash Point was a single-life round-robin game mode where the goal was to capture a single captured zone across the entire map multiple times to claim victory.
The single-life modes were hard to warm up to while still getting familiar with the game, because of course failing means you’re out of the game for a while. And while Concord is a fairly straight-forward FPS, I have a major criticism just two months after its launch on August 24th: in the build I played, the movement was extremely jerky and took some time to get used to. This is compounded by the fact that each Freerunner character you can play has a unique set of moves and skills that they bring to the team, so every time you switch to a new character, you’re trying to learn and configure your brain to how they work. So you can imagine it will be a bit disorienting.
And while Concord is coming out on PC day and date with PS5, I’ve only been able to review it on PS5 with a controller, so with that in mind, I’d say the movement is strongly reminiscent of Destiny and Halo. Again, it’s incredibly floaty, which could be a fun element if done well. However, the way the demo looked, the light jumps and hang times didn’t really match the amount of quick fights that could occur at any given time in matches.
Even though Halo uses a similar floating jump mechanic, the rest of the mechanics and gameplay in Halo justify this reasoning and it doesn’t feel like an extra feature. Grenades are also light when lobbed through the air, the various abilities in Halo all have the same weight, and the cadence and pacing of the match reflects the balance between the core gameplay mechanics. Players in Halo, even in competitive ranked matches, heal over time after avoiding damage for a while.
Likewise, Destiny is a more PvE-related game and therefore doesn’t need the incredibly nimble mechanics that Halo or Concord need in PvP combat. Even in PvP fights in Destiny, the usual TTK is slower, as fights can drag out due to different class abilities allowing for slower or faster gameplay, depending on how players choose to engage (ie more direct or reserved). Each class also has different movement abilities and healing abilities to ensure that the pace of the match remains consistent throughout.
So the problem with Concord, at least in this preview version, is that it takes little bits and pieces from games like Halo and Destiny and mash them together into a formula that just doesn’t sit right with me yet. Concord actually uses the same type of dodge animation from Destiny that pulls you out in third person. While I liked this element in Destiny, it doesn’t quite work in Concord, as there is a short but noticeable delay between when you enter a dodge and when it actually deploys. This can make or break your life as timing is everything in a competitive game and a single hesitation or simulated hesitation via a delayed input can severely punish you.
Sony says there will be a total of six maps at launch, so perhaps some game modes will be better controlled and optimized over others when they’re broken down. But as things currently stand, most of the maps seemed very strangely distorted. Some lanes were too long or large and barely saw rotations, while another lane on another map would just seem too small and cause long teamfights due to its claustrophobic size.
Concord highlights its competitiveness and fast fights. I like all of this, but I find that the competitiveness runs the risk of not being welcoming to new players trying to learn the game, as most of the game modes are focused on one life.
It is important to note that even if you are an incredible player, Concord is not a game that allows you to win many 1v2 fights. Unlike Apex or Halo, where you can potentially outsmart your opponents and win in 1v2 scenarios, Concord is so heavily a team game that you can’t succeed if you’re on your own. While this Yippee The point of team-based FPS games, it’s quite punishing for modes like Trophy Hunt where you’re challenged to go out and get kills for an objective.
Another reason why these lopsided matches are unwinnable is the fact that each character in Concord has their own health pool and hitbox. That would be fine if these characters had your traditional classes, but Concord doesn’t use your typical class system. Typically, each class has its own health stats that you can expect from each character in this deck.
Looking at Overwatch for example, most tanks have a base health of anywhere from 525 to 700 (with combinations of shields or armor in the game for specific characters that have them like DVA and Reinhardt). In Concord, it was incredibly difficult to determine exactly what the health pool was for any of the classes, as there wasn’t really anything fully established with their system.
For example, 1-Off is a cute robot who vacuums up trash, and he’s definitely a tank character with his big build and clumsy movement and hard-hitting weapons that have 300 health. However, Teo, who is basically a DPS that plays as your traditional ground soldier-like character without the tank features, has 220 health as the Concord Ranger class. But Roka, another character who is basically DPS, is classified as a Haunt and has 170 health.
What these unconventional classes mean is extremely confusing. We didn’t get details on each class and what those terms mean in the preview, but it all seems a little arbitrary when health pools and damage numbers are so different, causing even more splits in game balancing.
Overwatch also uses a system to ensure that there is a roster for the allowed number of characters from each class. Concord does not currently use such a mechanic and allows players to use the characters they want as these class systems are not traditional. While it’s fun in theory, in my short experience playing a competitive game like Concord, it doesn’t do much.
Another reason why Concord is such a heavily team game is that each character has their own run speed and damage. One could argue that this is an extension of the lack of clear classes, but I wanted to focus on it as its own balancing issue. DPS on characters is pretty important because you can have a team of any characters you want.
There were some decidedly “overpowered” characters in the demo build that you really needed on your team if you wanted to win, especially in Trophy Hunt. Let’s take a look at the Freegunner rocket launcher, Roka.
It can deal 43 damage with direct hits, firing rapidly and locating its target almost instantly. After doing a few backtracks, there seems to be no real answer to how far Rok’s splash damage is and how much he does consistently. So far I’ve seen it hit from a decent distance for 12 damage, then also hit for 27 damage closer to the target. Roka also has a total of eight rockets she can use before needing to reload, so those numbers add up.
Compared to Overwatch’s Pharah, another character with a rocket launcher, she only deals 40 damage to the enemy when she is Direct hit, with her splash damage being roughly halved. It also only has six missiles before it needs to be reloaded, and it has no lock-on fire capabilities.
Obviously, comparing the two games isn’t fair to either, but it’s important to note the difference between balancing. It is quite possible that over time Concord will be able to better understand how its balance should be maintained. But as it currently stands, I’m concerned about the experience and general accessibility to casual players.
The ability to crossplay with PC and PS5 will be available at launch, which is good news for gamers like me who have friends on both platforms, but it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. The preview build I played showed heavy aim assist on the controllers. It was most noticeable on Roka, the rocket launcher character, as her weapon jammed. I found myself having to really snap my thumb to get her to turn away from the closest enemy I didn’t even want to target.
The other characters I played didn’t have nearly as aggressive aiming, but I could feel the magnetization there, which was a bit frustrating and given that crossplay will be enabled at launch. While yes, you could argue that you can make faster on-the-fly motion adjustments on PC, the constant battle between using a controller and moving your keyboard and mouse seems to only get worse here.
Fortunately, Concord’s launch is still a few months away – still plenty of time to balance and fine-tune every aspect of the game, which always happens at this stage of the development process. Fingers crossed Concord is able to tighten up its motion controls and address character balance before it hits PS5 and PC on August 24th.