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I don’t envy the developers behind Concord. The hero shooter subgenre is a difficult space to break into, and cultivating a dedicated playerbase is even tougher. After seeing Concord’s gameplay reveal last month and its lukewarm response, I would have told you Firewalk Studios’ debut title would likely fall flat on its face.
However, after spending a few hours with Concord earlier this month, it’s clear that PlayStation and Firewalk Studios have built a solid foundation for its sci-fi multiplayer shooter. Mechanically, Concord sits somewhere between Overwatch and Valorant. Gun combat plays a big role in the moment-to-moment gameplay, but fast reaction times and pinpoint accuracy aren’t the be-all end-all of firefights. Each hero, or Freegunner as they are called, boasts a unique primary weapon, a distinct movement style, and two primary abilities. The lengthy time to kill lets all these different abilities shine without undermining the tight and responsive gunplay. Success requires good team composition, an understanding of each character’s abilities, and a bit of raw skill.
While most Freegunners still fit into a traditional role–such as a support or tank–they feel a bit more flexible than their Overwatch counterparts. You’d think Star Child, the blue and red behemoth with a large health pool, would be the ideal tank. But thanks to his well-rounded kit–including a primary ability that essentially turns him into a wrecking ball that charges across the battlefield–and his shotgun that doubles as an axe, he can fit into an offensive DPS role with hit-and-run tactics. In the back half of one game, I racked up a half dozen kills by outflanking the enemy team.
All 10 of the Freegunner’s I tested out felt deadly in their own way, while still playing towards specific roles. Vale is a sniper equipped with a bolt-action sniper rifle, a pistol, proximity mines, and an enhanced vertical leap. She thrives at range where she can pick off weakened enemies, but thanks to her trip mines, she can also control the flow of the battlefield. All three maps I played consisted of three interconnected lanes, and while a couple trip mines carefully placed along one of these corridors likely won’t stop an enemy team, they are sure to slow them down.
Meanwhile, Lennox is Concord’s Cole Cassidy, formerly McCree. Armed with a six shooter, explosive throwing knives, and a self-heal ability, Lennox feels like your standard high-skill DPS character. Lining up headshots is key, and activating his abilities at the right time can get you out of some sticky situations. Lennox captures that high risk, high reward playstyle. His self-heal makes him viable for lone wolf tactics, and if you can consistently land headshots, most enemies won’t last long.
My favorite Freegunner was Haymar, a crossbow wielding spellcaster that can hover around the map. Her Flameshot Bow fires an incendiary bolt that can deal significant damage on direct hits. Her abilities consist of a blinding flash that disorients enemies and a wall of fire that can create chokepoints. Flying around combat zones essentially flash banging enemies and laying down walls of fire while teammates cleaned up the stragglers was a blast.
Freegunners and their abilities aren’t set in stone, either. Firewalk Studios hopes to keep combat fresh with something called Combat Traits. Each Freegunner has a set of Combat Traits that act as perks. For example, Lennox had one that let him automatically reload when he dodged. This felt a little unbalanced in a PvP setting–especially when the main drawback of revolver is its slow reload speed–but it definitely has me curious how these Combat Traits could affect a Freegunner and their role within the team.
Flexible Freegunner roles and Combat Traits feed into Concord’s asymmetric combat. Each Freegunner has their own set of strengths and weaknesses thanks to their varied health pools, weapons, and abilities. This means some heroes may pair well with each other while others don’t. For example, there’s a support character named Daw who can put down AOE heal stations and force fields that block all incoming and outgoing fire. Daw is great for holding down objectives and keeping Star Child covered at long range. However, my team quickly learned that Daw’s force field ability could negatively impact all of our medium to long range heroes at crucial moments. Jabali on the other hand can heal teammates with a bit more precision thanks to his healing orbs, similar to Zenyatta’s Orbs of Harmony from Overwatch. Seeing how all these different Freegunners could compliment each other and counter the other team’s makes firefights feel dynamic and unpredictable.
Firewalk Studios has opted to lean into that asymmetry of its characters. While this will undoubtedly make specific matchups difficult, this imbalance forces you to work as a team, and use your character’s entire kit. Of course, the Firewalk Studios team will be monitoring balance once the game ends up in players hands, but according to Claude Jerome, the lead gameplay designer, that asymmetry is crucial to Concord’s heroes.
This asymmetry is not reflected in Concord’s game modes and map design. I had the chance to check out three different game types: Trophy Hunt which is basically Kill Confirmed from Call of Duty, and Cargo Run and Clash Point which are round base modes with no respawn. As someone who’s played over 500 hours of Rainbow Six: Siege, Cargo Run and Clash Point were the highlights for me. The limited respawn and objective based gameplay required a level of coordination that you don’t always get in team deathmatch style modes. Unlike Siege and Valorant, Concord’s symmetrical maps meant that both teams were at an even playing field at the start of each round. This makes it easier to focus on team composition relative to your team rather than your starting location.
Concord’s mechanics may tread a lot of familiar ground within the hero shooter genre, but the way Firewalk Studios’ heroes, maps, and game modes compliment each other feels fresh. Each Freegunner has just enough flexibility to break out of their role if they need to, the simplistic arena-style maps prioritize smart ability usage over intimate map knowledge, and the game modes are just complicated enough to encourage teamwork. I’m curious to see if and how Concord holds up with more maps, characters, and game modes in the mix.
While I was impressed by the combat, I’m not entirely sold on the universe and the story Concord hopes to tell. Freegunner’s are outlaws that speed around the galaxy looking for adventure. Each week, Firewalk Studios will release a two minute vignette that plays when you boot up the game. These vignettes will shape an ongoing narrative that players will experience together.
Before my hands-on session, the studio showed us the first one, and its tone gave off a we-have-Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-at-home sort of vibe. Maybe it could build to something more interesting, or maybe I’ve just grown tired of that Marvel-esque tone, but it didn’t do much for me in the moment. I also wonder how Concord plans to onboard new players if they’ve missed the first few weeks of the story. According to the devs, they will make all those vignettes available on YouTube, but I can’t imagine players will actively seek those out.
