Grab a copy of Overwatch off some dusty GameStop shelf and rub it under the aromatic armpit of Guardians of the Galaxy’s Peter Quill, and you might smell something akin to Concord. As far as competitive hero shooters go, Sony’s sci-fi contender plays it pretty sheltered, with instantly charming characters rendered immaculately in stunningly lovely cutscenes and skill-based PvP combat that never raises the question of why these characters are fighting each other when they’re clearly allies in said cutscenes. But just because it doesn’t offer much in the way of innovation doesn’t mean Concord isn’t incredibly fun to play. I still have a lot to look forward to when the game releases next month, but with 16 characters and four familiar game modes available in the pre-order beta last weekend, the expansive majority of the 10-plus hours I’ve spent with the game so far have been sweaty, gun-toting good fun.
You and your squad will assemble a five-person team of superhero characters, each with their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities, and then unleash them against the opposing team in a variety of formulaic game modes. These include the standard Deathmatch mode, a “Kill Confirmed” mode called Trophy Hunt, an attack and defense mode called Cargo Run, and a zone control mode called Clash Point – none of which have even the slightest hint of novelty. But being too familiar isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you have best-in-class gunplay and awesome characters with compelling powers to back it up, and boy, does Concord have both of those traits down to a tee.
Concord wisely keeps the weapon selection very restricted, with only two options given to each character by default, and no way to customise this – but as a result, each weapon feels incredibly responsive and finely tuned, and no two characters have a weapon that feels similar. The arena-controlling elderly lady, Duchess, wields a submachine gun that’s devastating at close range, while the sneaky and tactical Vale relies mainly on a long-range sniper rifle to take down enemies from afar. Not everything feels perfectly balanced – I, for one, think that most things should probably die when they take a sniper rifle to the head, and it’s a little odd that a character who uses a slow-charging rocket launcher as their main weapon doesn’t do much damage with it – but they all feel really good to utilize, and that means I’m having a good time, even if it feels like something here and there needs tweaking.
Likewise, the skills that complement these weapons are fantastic, diverse, and have very generous cooldowns, completely changing the way combat plays out depending on what character you’re playing. The floating, fireball-throwing Haymar can blind enemies for a period of time and make them pay for standing in the same place for too long, while the rampaging ogre, Star Child, can quickly close the distance with his charging attack and shatter the ground, dealing a lot of damage around him. Not all of the characters feel as original as Teo is the most generic soldier in the world and comes equipped with a smoke grenade and a cluster grenade as his two powers, but these dull options are few and far between. Getting to know each character, using their skills to counter your opponents’ team composition, and juggling the madness of the battlefield with top-notch shooting was just as much fun in my first match as it is in my 30th, and I certainly can’t say I’ve felt that way in most hero shooters I’ve spent time with.
One of the few novel twists Concord brings to the genre is the way its competitive playlist works. Unlike the casual playlist, where you can play any character (as long as someone else hasn’t picked them), competitive cleverly doesn’t let you pick the same character again if you win a round using that character. Since matches are played to best-of-seven rounds, that means winning one of those rounds will force you to step outside your comfort zone and utilize at least four different characters. Not only is this a clever way to force people to master more than one or two options, it also encourages communication with your team between rounds to make sure you have the right coverage to play out whatever strategy you’re trying to execute as your options get narrower.
Another engaging addition that Concord adds to the formula are character variants: slightly different versions of existing characters that come with a unique perk and a different appearance, and that can be unlocked by completing certain objectives during matches. For example, the gunslinger Lennox can normally reload his weapon while dodging, while the variant you can unlock for him loses that ability but instead gains more ammo for all of his weapons. The five variants available for each character so far mostly offer minor changes like this, but they definitely add a significant element to the chase that provides more options in combat. Perhaps more importantly, they also give you the ability to bend the numbers a bit on your competitive playlist, as the variants count as separate characters in your crew, and therefore allow you to play the same characters across multiple rounds.
I also love that Concord is full of silly terms in the “How to Play” section of the tutorial, like the way it tells you if certain game modes can be sweaty by giving them a “Sweatstrum” rating, or the way it explains that you can supercharge your skills with “Sloops,” AKA “Skill Loops.” It may not have much of a story yet, but this game has charm emanating from its Martian ears.
There’s more I didn’t get to play in this early beta, like two game modes that remain locked for now, but Concord is already shaping up to be a massive hero shooter that I could easily see competing with the genre giants. It doesn’t feel like it’s bringing much up-to-date to the table, which is a bit of a letdown considering we’ve already played great games very similar to this, but I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far and can’t wait to play a lot more of it when it releases next month.
