Concord

Concord is a very fun sci-fi hero shooter that shows real promise, but lacks both innovation and content at launch.

Concord's snappy combat and colourful character abilities make it a perfectly playable shooter. But muddled hero designs and unimaginative maps and modes leave it struggling to stand out.

Concord feels out of touch and already out of time.

Concord doesn't deserve to be a punchline about low player-counts.

Sure, Concord’s premium model over a nightmare FPS full of passes and paid skins sounded great on paper, but the package has to be enticing enough to warrant the purchase, and simply put, the juice isn’t there. A part of me wants it to find its audience and improve, but this is looking like another Suicide Squad situation.

Concord is a clean and well-meaning first-person shooter, with no shady business practices to boot. Its lack of real identity is an issue, and it's difficult to determine just how much Sony is going to get behind it long-term. However, there's a polished and beautifully presented experience on offer here, with some interesting tactical team-building systems and sublime animations. Firewalk's debut may not be out of this world, but it's genuinely pretty good overall.

Concord is a polished hero shooter that doesn't do much to stick out from the crowd.

Concord isn’t a poor multiplayer offering by any means. It has fun hero-shooter bones, an eclectic cast of characters with distinct strategies, and rich world-building that’s set to dribble out consistently over time. It’s just that Firewalk Studios’ debut lacks original ideas that elevate that promising foundation. The result is a perfectly fine, though imbalanced, live service shooter that doesn’t feel long for this universe.

Concord is a polished, entertaining multiplayer shooter, but one that doesn't quite succeed in carving out a space in an already crowded genre.

What truly holds Concord back is its lack of identity. A story or campaign would have been a great way to showcase the world, its characters and lore, yet all of that is stuffed into the Galactic Guide that few players will probably ever read. The Freegunners and game modes are fun and mostly balanced, though feel derivative when stacked up against the already established competition. Meanwhile, map design feels safe with layouts that don’t encourage much experimentation. Concord is a good, fun game from a brand-new studio that’s currently missing its identity. It may be a bit lost in space, but Concord checks off enough boxes to hopefully chart a path forward.