When I first heard the name of Firewalk Studios’ Concord I was transported back to my nan and grandad’s house in the late 90s. There I was, tiny, full head of hair, having my shit rocked as supersonic airliner Concorde darted overhead at Mach 2. I’d often hear its thunderous roar announcing its presence long before I saw it – a one-of-a-kind feat of engineering that managed to ingrain itself so viscerally into my memory to this day.
Of course, Concord isn’t Concorde. While they share a mutual meaning – ‘harmony between people’ – they couldn’t be more dissonant. I don’t mean this in the literal sense, though. You see, for Concord to live up to the precedent set by its aeronautical counterpart it needs to be bold, unique, and an absolute tour de force. Concord isn’t any of those things from what I’ve experienced so far in the FPS game. Having spent just over ten hours testing out all 16 Concord characters available in its open beta, across the four available Concord game modes on offer, the good news is the hero shooter has some fabulously robust fundamentals to build on. But I’m not convinced it’s going to survive being thrown to the live-service wolves.
Firewalk’s Bungie pedigree is hardly a secret at this point – in fact, I’m pretty sure more people know the studio’s roots than don’t. Between its floaty gunplay and Destiny 2-esque movement, the parallels between Concord and one of the best MMO games out there draw themselves. Chaining headshots with Lennox’s handgun offers the same sort of satisfactory ding my hand cannon-wielding Destiny 2 Hunter gives me when dispatching Guardians in Trials of Osiris. Meanwhile, Haymar’s jetpack and fiery abilities will ingratiate her with Warlock enjoyers.
But it’s not just from Destiny where I feel Concord’s inspiration. IT-Z’s Cosmic Slip is a fun take on Sombra’s Translocator from Overwatch 2, while Jabali’s orbs are reminiscent of Moira’s, though you need a touch more skill to utilize them effectively. Concord feels like a greatest hits compilation, synthesizing tried and tested mechanics with its own original beats. Duchess, for example, can wall off sections of the map, before unleashing a storm that makes enemies vulnerable to her close-range SMG. Lark’s spore-based kit, meanwhile, offers up a ton of resistances.
Though it hasn’t exactly pushed the boat out in terms of originality, you can tell a lot of care has gone into creating solid in-game identities for each Freegunner. Though I can’t say I particularly care about their personalities just yet, I certainly feel there’s plenty more to come from them. Concord also gets Hero Shooter 101 spot-on when it comes to composition building. Game director Ryan Ellis once said “Concord is a bringing together of peoples,” and you certainly need to bring the right ones if you’re going to excel.
In every game I played, it was glaringly apparent that I was doomed without at least one tank and one healer. I can imagine the cheers of Overwatch players when I say role lock doesn’t exist here, but this does often result in lopsided teams. This is perfect for Concord’s mantra, though, as only the selfless players who are willing to fill where necessary will succeed most of the time – it’s a hit to main character syndrome sufferers everywhere.
But that’s not to say you won’t be able to hard-carry games if you play correctly. My favorite Concord mechanic allows you to instantly regenerate abilities on takedown. I remember one game where I went on a rampage with Lennox, getting my explosive knife back every time I notched up a kill. This meant I could stay on the map permanently, nabbing a health pack, popping my self-heal, or dipping behind my Emari for cover as necessary. It’s a challenge, but when you get into the flow of Concord’s combat you feel unstoppable, and I have to commend Firewalk for being able to find an equilibrium between its longer times-to-kill – a hero shooter staple – and the ability to go on a tear à la classic arena shooters.
I will say that damage tuning is a little all over the place at the moment. In my experience, at least, this has led to the playerbase relying on the highest DPS and tankiest characters, leaving utility-based picks out to dry – sorry, Kyps. I’m not worried about this, though, as there’s still plenty of time for Firewalk to make those adjustments based on beta feedback. There’s also the factor that, because we’ve only had a small amount of time with the game, we haven’t quite found the right uses for the game’s more sophisticated Freegunners. Regardless, expect a very different meta when the game finally launches.
Concord’s beta modes follow a similar pattern to the multiplayer game’s characters in that they do the basics well. There’s a standard Takedown (Team Deathmatch) and Trophy Hunt for casuals, while hardcore players can step into the no-respawn modes Cargo Run and Clash Point. Cargo Run feels like a fresh take on Search & Destroy where both teams are simultaneously the attackers and defenders with a central ‘bomb’ to plant – the kicker being you can still flip the objective post-plant. Clash Point, meanwhile, will quickly divide your team based on who wants to chase kills vs who wants to play for the objective.
During my less-than-glowing first impressions piece on Concord’s cinematic reveal trailer, I highlighted its weekly vignettes as a beacon of hope and a way for it to help distinguish itself from its genremates through its characters. These quick-fire lore bites are going to be crucial to getting people to actually care about its menagerie of miscreants before they bounce off of the game.
The first of these, ‘Vocal Cartographer,’ does well to establish the nerdy, dismissive, and diligent traits of Lennox, Haymar, and Teo respectively. Its delivery, however, reinforces my wish for Concord to have debuted as more of a grounded, sci-fi RPG, rather than as a hero shooter that almost retreads the plucky, rag-tag trope hegemonized by the likes of the Guardians of the Galaxy almost step-for-step. It’s in the moments that Lennox is diving into the history of the Implacable that I finally felt that swell of grandeur, that sense of originality come through.
If you haven’t already noted the tendril of consistency that’s woven its way through the trellis of Concord’s design, let me illuminate it for you. Firewalk isn’t reinventing the wheel here. Concord’s safe, familiar, and you know exactly what you’re getting with it. Concord isn’t Concorde – if anything it’s a Boeing 747, and that’s okay. But does it have enough oomph to get Firewalk where it needs to be?
Last year, Ellis took to the PlayStation Blog as part of Concord’s reveal. Most pertinent to my initial Concorde anecdote is the bit where he notes the Firewalk team’s fervor for “the type of exciting, unexpected moments and shared experiences that multiplayer games create.” Considering the heavy impetus so many live-service game makers place on ‘emergent player narratives’ – the one-of-a-kind shared stories between players that organically generate buzz for a game – the Firewalk team knows that it needs to provide those unique experiences that we’ll be talking about for months and years to come if it’s going to survive in an increasingly diluted market.
The problem it currently faces is that it’s attempting to enter an arena filled to the brim with free-to-play monoliths – many of them sitting proudly on our best PC games list – at a $40 price point. The only game that I’ve seen in recent times that has successfully managed to circumvent the current live-service meta is Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 – a game that had all the hallmarks of Concorde when it arrived earlier this year.
Don’t get me wrong, Concord is very much a complete package. It’s an enjoyable hero shooter that boasts a diverse cast with plenty of gameplay distinction between its members. It also runs buttery smooth on my Ryzen 5 3600/RTX 3070 rig with barely a stutter here and there. However, it’s currently missing the ‘e’ at the end, which the late Tony Benn, former British minister of technology, once said stands for “excellence” (alongside a bunch of patriotic garble meant to help appease the French and Scottish who’d helped build Concorde, but that’s beside the point).
Indeed, it’s this missing X factor (E factor?) that makes me worry about Concord. I’m not confident that it’s going to be able to create the strength of emergent narrative required for it to survive as a free-to-play shooter, let alone for 40 bucks. And with the Concord release date merely a month away, Firewalk doesn’t have much time left to make major changes in time for launch. I’m sure it’ll find its niche, but that won’t be enough to sustain it long-term.