‘Concord’ review: Sorry to say it, but it's a flop

Concord is Firewalk’s debut game — and it’s part of Sony’s initiative in releasing more live-service games. With the monumental success of Helldivers 2 earlier this year, it seems like Sony was on the right track.

Concord has solid gameplay mechanics, but fails when it comes to providing characters to care about and doesn’t accomplish its attempts to stand out from other hero shooters.

Concord plot

One of the ways that Concord tries to stand out from other hero shooters like Overwatch and Valorant is that it attempts to attach a narrative. Each week, Concord receives new vignettes (i.e., a cutscene that shows what its characters are up to). The issue is that I feel like I’m just being dumped into an existing storyline without any context. It’s difficult for me to care about any of the characters as there’s no buildup — and it feels like I’m watching an MCU movie post-credit scene. But without knowing where the overall story is going, I feel lost.

Credit: Firewalk

There’s also an encyclopedia called the Galactic Guide where all of Concord’s lore is documented. It’s actually incredibly engrossing if you take the time to sit down and read through all of it. The characters you play as are called Freerunners, and they’re up against the Guild, a governing body that controls trading routes in space. In terms of lore, the Galactic Guide provides a wealth of information on hidden trading routes for Freerunners, so they can slip by the Guild’s checkpoints.

While all of this is genuinely interesting to read, that’s the problem: I’m reading instead of playing the game. Lore in collectibles is one thing, but siphoning off the substantial world-building in a separate menu doesn’t make for engaging gameplay.

Whenever I read the guide, I feel like I’m in an enriching sci-fi universe like Mass Effect or Starfield. No matter how many matches I play or gameplay modes I participate in, Concord’s story doesn’t budge a single inch forward, making it feel completely detached. I would honestly enjoy a single-player game in Concord’s universe and it seems like it could be a Star Wars: Outlaws kind of adventure.

Concord characters

Concord’s character roster starts off with 16 unique Freerunners to choose from.

Credit: Firewalk

Due to how vignettes are dolled out, I can’t really bring myself to care about them at the moment. I’m hoping that the sentiment changes as time progresses, because the Galactic Guide contains so much interesting lore that can potentially morph Concord into a compelling space opera.

Concord mechanics

Like any other hero shooter, each character has its own unique weapons and abilities to fight with in battle. It’s fun to experiment with how each character plays to see which one fits your playstyle the greatest.

Credit: Firewalk

Each character is separated into six different classes: Anchor, Breacher, Haunt, Ranger, Tactician, and Warden. The Anchors are your typical tanks, being able to take a ton of damage while Tacticians have more unconventional abilities and require more strategic gameplay. This lets each character shine in their own way and makes matches memorable as they class.

The Job Board consists of daily, weekly, and seasonal challenges that grant you experience upon completion, such as dealing a certain amount of damage at short range or eliminating four opponents with critical hits. What I like about how Concord handles them in particular is that, even when I lost a match, I still felt I made progress.

Concord’s unique mechanic to help separate itself from other hero shooters is called Crew Bonus. Essentially, using a particular class gives you a passive bonus that stays with you for the entire match. For example, using a Tactician character like Teo grants you faster reload speed, while playing as a Warden like Haymar grants longer weapon range. 

What’s cool about this is that these bonuses stack and carry over, even when you die. So you can start off the match as a Tactician character, then play as a Warden to obtain both bonuses. It’s a unique incentive that encourages players to frequently switch up their characters. The issue is, however, that these bonuses feel negligible over the course of an entire game. In the heat of battle, I’ve never felt like these bonuses made a difference between life and death.

Concord has your typical gameplay modes like Team Deathmatch, where you simply eliminate the other team and area control, where you secure a spot and keep enemies away. However, it also lacks a signature gameplay mode like Overwatch’s Escort mode. This contributes to Concord’s lack of a unique identity when it comes to its competition.

Concord graphics

This is where I believe Concord stumbles the most. Many of the game’s hero designs are unappealing and lack any flare. Sony’s first party games like The Last of Us and Ghost of Tsushima are known for their hyper-realistic graphics, but I think it backfires in Concord. The 3D models look too realistic to the point where it feels like an uncanny valley. Also, the color palette is too pastel-like and there isn’t enough contrast. The hues just look washed out.

Credit: Firewalk

For example, the character Roka wears an astronaut-like helmet with some slimming body armor. However, her costume just consists of dull greens and browns, and I can’t make out her personality through her helmet at all. Another character, Amari, has almost the exact same monotonous color palette on her suit, and she looks like a bad Doomguy cosplay. At least, though, I can tell that she’s a tank character because of her enormous size. The character Lennox looks exactly (I’m not kidding) like the actor who plays Yondu in the Guardians of the Galaxy films.

I actually found Concord’s 2D and concept art to be much more artistically appealing, which you can see in the menus like in the Play and Freegunners sections. It reminds me of Deathloop’s 1960’s inspired artwork and it looks so much more vibrant. It just didn’t translate well to 3D models because of Sony’s push for hyper-realistic graphics, and going for a more stylistic graphical direction like in Overwatch or Valorant would’ve been better.

Concord music and audio

Concord’s soundtrack is fine for the most part, and not that much particularly sticks out as memorable or bad. The audio jingle that plays every time you level up sounds satisfying, though. I also like the swelling orchestral music that plays while going through the Galactic Guide.

Concord challenge difficulty

Given that Concord is a multiplayer game, its difficulty entirely relies on whether you’re good at the game. While I didn’t feel the impact of Crew Bonuses all that much, players who learn and take advantage of the mechanic will perform better than those who don’t.

Credit: Firewalk

Players also can’t use real-world currency to pay for stronger boosts, so Concord is an even playing field where skill matters the most.

Concord performance

I didn’t experience any performance issues nor glitches during my time playing Concord. It has reasonable loading times and very few frame drops, if any at all.

Is Concord worth getting?

Concord has plenty of replay value given that it’s a multiplayer shooter, but that all depends on the amount of players currently playing it.

Credit: Firewalk

It’s a $40 game compared to most of its contemporaries, which are free-to-play. While this lets Concord avoid aggressive monetization, it’s also a barrier to entry for a game that still has yet to find its footing.

Concord has some good foundations, but Firewalk definitely needs to build on them. The shooting and movement all feel fluid, but the story and the Freegunners themselves aren’t very memorable so far. Hopefully, Firewalk improves on those aspects by adding more Freegunners with more striking designs and color, as well as providing more context via the vignettes. Its current price tag of $40 is high, so maybe wait for a sale if you enjoy hero shooters.