Concord’s beta weekend impresses with exciting gameplay

Concord is a similar yet addicting experience to play as new arena shooter that isn’t Overwatch, Apex Legends, The Finals, or Valorant. All jokes aside, this is a very competitive field for this genre these days, but I believe Concord brings unique enough components to distinguish itself from the competition. Strongly designed characters paired with unique move sets, abilities, and tightly polished gameplay set the foundation for an addicting team-based shooter. It’s not a perfect game by any means, but playing this beta got me exciting for its upcoming release this August.

The game immediately boots up a very high-quality cutscene with the crew of the Northstar awaiting an acceptance to become Free Gunners of the galaxy. It really tries hard to get you to like these characters. Then, the crew comes to find that they have been accepted and begin their journey living their dreams being free from the space guild. Now what’s next for them is to explore and conquer the challenges of finding treasure of space which entails battling opposing crews (I think). It’s an interesting story premise, but it’s gonna take more than this to get me to care about these characters. So far the most appealing them about them are their move kits and few interactions within matches.

Additionally, the game’s story doesn’t really get to telling the player why these characters are battling against each other. I find that it’s kind of odd not to establish some opposing force or even a villain for that matter. It just doesn’t really seem like there’s a conflict, but being that this is a video game in familiar genre it shouldn’t doesn’t matter. What matters is the gameplay is sharp and extremely enjoyable. Firewalk has stated that there are going to be weekly story cutscenes every week to progress the story along. Since there’s no story mode, this the best way to add depth and give us some context to these fascinating characters. Hopefully by the time of its release this newly established sci-fi universe will be more expanded.

The strong foundation

Going into a match cues up another beautiful scene of a ship landing on a colorful planet that will soon become a battleground. Choosing from the 16 playable free gunners is less about fulfilling roles such as healer, or tank and more about which one is best fit for the objective of this mission. The default mode is a 5v5 death match which is exactly what is described. However, the competitive modes involve capture a point/defend a point and set and destroy. Certain characters skills may thrive more in one game mode more than the other. In terms of their move sets, they are all fairly easy to learn. It’s one of those games that where move sets will be quick to pick up and play, but more difficult to master their technicalities and benefit from the nuances. Concord is going to push you to play multiple characters due to two reasons.

The competitive modes (capture point/defend point, set and destroy) are 5v5 with no respawn and best of seven matches. The kicker, is that once you win a round with a character, in the forthcoming rounds that character will be unavailable forcing the player to use an alternative character. These continues for each round won. So a minimum of at least four free gunners will be in use for each competitive match. No one tricks here! The next incentive to use more than one character is the mechanic to stack abilities. All characters have a specific skill. For example, the character Lennox, has the ability to automatically reload as he dodges. When you die in game, the game immediately takes you to the free gunner selection screen. If you were to choose a new character you will keep his ability as well the new character’s ability. And this will continue on so long as you keep switching characters.

Oddly enough, the game doesn’t explain to you how the stacking mechanic works. This is a work in progress so I won’t judge too harshly. The stacking mechanic can run deep when it comes to team composition. You are able to save presets for each character so when it comes down to jumping into competitive modes you can easily choose your preset. That being said, you are able to totally disregard this stacking mechanic and enjoy the game for what it is. It’s not something that’s gonna tip the scales this early in its life and it doesn’t hinder the fun whatsoever. Even before finding out about the stacking mechanic, I was finding myself continuously loading into new matches because I couldn’t get enough of it.

Honorable mentions

Concord has customization options for its free gunners. The alternate variants of the skins not only alters their appearances, but it gives them a new ability. So instead of having their default ability with the original skin, you can change to an ability that better reflects your play style. Some abilities are more useful than others. For instance there’s a character that has an automatic reload when they dodge and I believe more characters can benefit from that automatic reload. These skins are unlocked from completing missions which are fairly generic. Get this many kills with so and so, use this ability in this way. Variants are also unlocked by leveling up individual character levels. This is done by continuously playing a character and winning matches to gain experience.

Personally, I find the game just beautifully vivid and eye-catching. I can’t help but be awe struck with all the colors on display on the loading screens and during gameplay. The characters are also very detailed and visually striking. To add, the game runs smoothly at 60 fps. There are times where a lot is happening on screen like flames, explosions, gun fire, and quick characters. Not once did the performance suffer on my PlayStation 5.

An uphill battle

The one obstacle this game has is convincing players that this experience is worth the $40 price tag. After the lackluster performance from the PlayStation Event from earlier in the year there was no way I was going to spend money to get access to a beta. Fortunately, they opened up the beta to PS Plus subscribers which turned my head and ultimately won me over. I had a blast playing Concord! Concord does provide familiar gameplay experience compared to its competitors. There’s enough here to justify its existence and the best way to convince players to buy into it will be to get their hands on it. Time is ticking for Firewalk before Concord’s release on Tuesday, August 24.