Concord review – Northstar Wars

Guardians of the Galaxy-esque Concord has everything you could ask for from a competitive shooter. It has beautifully polished gameplay, a chunky amount of content right out of the gate, and it looks like a million bucks. Sony’s new live-service game has all the tools it needs to leave a mark on the genre, but crucially, it lacks a playerbase to give the Firewalk Studios-developed game a chance to succeed. Unfortunately, Time is working against Concord, as in the eight years it has spent in development, trends have changed and established competitors have cemented their place in the genre.

It’s a tragedy then, as Concord will go down as one of the best games of the year that nobody is playing.

While it definitely didn’t include us, a pre-launch toxic reception to Concord hasn’t helped it chances either. The sad fact, though, is that the game is releasing into an incredibly competitive genre right now. Not only do games like Overwatch 2, Valorant, and Apex Legends have established, committed audiences, but with these titles being free-to-play, it feels hard to justify investing time and money into the new live-service shooter on the block. It’s a pity, as Concord offers a terrific amount of content for its one-time entrance fee.

With 16 distinct characters, six modes, and all future content drops priced at the low fee of absolutely nothing, Concord has more than enough material to keep players engaged. The gameplay itself is consistently exciting, as each character dives into action with a diverse array of abilities and weapons to set them apart from the rest of the mercenary Freegunners they’re competing with or against. Each match hits a sweet spot for experimentation and action, never outstays its welcome, and the map modes put a neat spin on established competitive match types like Team Deathmatch or Kill Confirmed.

There’s a layer of Destiny-esque gunplay woven into the DNA of Concord, as each character and gun feels superb to handle, and while Concord doesn’t do a decent job of properly explaining how to use these colorful mercs, this can be forgiven because you’ll have a better understanding of each one with a decent amount of time invested in them. The maps you play on are competently designed as well, featuring a mix of kill-corridors to make a last stand in, chokepoints to take control of, and larger arena sections for all-out warfare on a grand scale.

The other gameplay feature that sets Concord apart from the pack is Role Designation, special in-match benefits that apply bonuses to your crew of Freegunners and can be deployed throughout a match. Deploying Freegunners of different roles can stack these unique buffs. For example, you can benefit from extra speed across the board if you choose the right characters. Select Freegunners from other roles to combine their benefits, like faster reload speeds, dodge cooldowns, and more.

Beyond the edge-of-your-seat gameplay, Concord fleshes out its lore with the Galactic Guide, a map of events of the state of the universe, the notable characters who inhabit it, and major events. The more you play as a certain character, the more you’ll learn about them and the Galactic Guide will be regularly updated with new story beats thanks to weekly cutscenes. Concord places a greater emphasis on narrative than any other competitive-shooter on the market, allowing interested players to become more invested in the stories behind their favorite characters. Or if you’d prefer to focus purely on gameplay, you’re free to give this optional part of the game a complete skip.

It’s an encouraging direction, as with most new live-service games, the experience can be a bare-bones one that grows over months and years, provided there’s enough player investment to sustain it. Concord is already a meaty multiplayer game… but unfortunately, it’s hard to predict if it’ll ever get the chance to grow.

The game is launching at an extraordinarily bad time, as it’s sandwiched between the breakout hit of Black Myth: Wukong and Ubisoft’s open-world scoundrel-’em-up, Star Wars Outlaws. Sony hasn’t even made a concerted push to market Concord on the same level as a God of War or The Last of Us, and the player numbers on Steam are currently dismal. Throw in general player fatigue toward live-service games – just look at Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League‘s current death spiral – and things don’t look good for a charming adventure that has its heart in the right place.

The sad reality is, that with so many players in the live-service market and only a handful of hours in the day, it’s almost impossible to knock the Call of Duty and Fortnite giants off their free-to-play thrones. They’re there for good, and even a new challenger promising a superb amount of content in exchange for a once-off fee, isn’t guaranteed to succeed. At this point, it’s almost a given that Concord will eventually be added to PlayStation Plus, and if that does happen, it is absolutely worth playing.

Released on 2 August, Concord is out now for PS5 and PC.