When Concord recently kicked off Sony’s latest State of Play, the reception from the team at DF Direct Weekly was hardly positive. The presentation opened with a pre-rendered CG video with a level of graphic quality that far exceeded what was realistically possible from the final game, while Concord’s actual gameplay reveal also tried to avoid comparisons to Overwatch. That said, we wanted to get hands-on with the game, and the recent beta gave us the opportunity to do just that: sample the PlayStation 5 and PC versions for ourselves – and it’s fair to say we’re more optimistic about its prospects. Now. There’s no doubt that this is a well-made game, but is it a must-play? We’re still not sure.
In the video embedded below, you’ll see that both John Linneman and Tom Morgan spent a good number of hours with the game on PS5 and two PC setups. This is a current-gen exclusive, and with that in mind, it opens up the possibilities for developers Firewalk Studios to really push the visual bar. To its credit, it should also be said that the game is based on Unreal Engine 5, but in the interest of maintaining image quality and good performance at 60 frames per second, it seems that the latest engine technologies are not deployed this time.
Microgeometry with Nanite is definitely not used, and the real-time global lighting that Lumen offers is also missing. Frankly, high tech isn’t nearly necessary for this style of play, and Concord’s approach to “baked in” (ie pre-calculated) indirect lighting and shadows still impresses. Visually, there’s a strong art direction here: Concord looks good, has character, and goes some way towards delivering the kind of Guardians of the Galaxy that next-gen Overwatch developer Firewalk Studios is aiming for.
The bright, vibrant style is directly inspired by Overwatch, but with UE5 it takes things a step further: Concord’s physics-based materials shine, while character rendering looks top-notch, supported by excellent animation and exceptional facial capture. This is important because Concord is very much a character-based game, and seeing these characters interact so convincingly in cutscenes only adds to its appeal.
Other elements in the presentation also stand out – such as the smooth transitions that probably cover the level load, along with the effective use of motion blur. This is limited to weapon and characters only, which should be the case in a competitive game. Another plus point? We’ve railed against the presence of disruptive stuttering in Unreal Engine titles, but whether it’s shader compilation or traversal issues, the good news is that Concord is free of both.
In terms of image quality, Concord delivers native 1440p on the PlayStation 5, upscaling to native 4K – as we’d hope for a UE5 title that doesn’t use its most demanding signature features – while deviations from the 60fps target are minimal and rare (at worst case of 55 frames per second). On the PC side, pushing things to ultra-quality doesn’t seem to be particularly difficult on the GPU side (we tested at native 4K, albeit on RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 systems). However, it appears to be very CPU intensive and frame generation was required to achieve the required 120 frames per second.
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Combined with frame-gen, there are all the standard spatial/temporal upscalers: Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR and Epic’s own TSR. That said, it’s a shame the game doesn’t seem to support HDR on PC – an unfortunate omission for a game as vibrant as this one. On the other hand, we can confirm that the game uses HDR on PS5.
All in all, Concord is shaping up nicely. The beta only brought four different maps, but still provided a healthy sampler for the game ahead of its August 23 release. Even our own John Linneman – hardly a fan of live-action titles or “hero shooters” like this one – enjoyed the game.
However, there are still concerns about Sony’s approach to the live service model. Like Helldivers 2, Concord is not a free-to-play game, despite popular belief to the contrary. At £34.99/$39.99, it’s certainly cheaper than Sony’s typical triple-A fare, but the point is that the game goes head-to-head with free-to-play titles – Overwatch 2 being the prime example. Whether the game has the quality or depth to warrant the price remains to be seen, but the technical underpinnings seem good to say the least. If more news is needed on this, we’ll get back to Concord closer to the August 23rd release date.