Concord hands-on review

This is a 5v5 hero shooter, which means you’ll be able to dish out punishment in first-person with different weapons, abilities and signature moves unique to each character. Much like Overwatch 2, yeah? There are a total of 16 characters referred to as Freegunners in the game lore and the story surrounding these alien species will be drip-fed to you every month or so through well-animated cut scenes. Concord has very impressive facial and character animations within cutscenes and character selection. It’s one of the best in the hero shooter genre we’ve seen but that’s like judging the taste of a McDonald’s burger from its advertisement.

Underneath that fantastic art, the gameplay falls a bit short. Sure, each character has unique abilities which you will only figure out once you play them. The character screen explains these abilities but only for a moment before you’re pushed into a game. So we had to try and figure out each character’s abilities inside an actual game. These things can be fixed in full release but some little things eventually add up. The fantastic design we mentioned? Well, the scorecard is a bit overdesigned. It’s hard to tell who did what and which of my four Concord colleagues played which character.

I think game balancing between the characters will be required. There were very few people who picked the tank class in the game simply because heals are dropped at specific locations on the map and without a healer in the team, slow-moving tanks become an easy target. It also felt very unbalanced in terms of support and tank. Just pick fast-moving and high-damage characters and your team will pretty much breeze into victory. Subsequently, a good balance in the team can easily win matches without the ‘sweaty’ offence-only approach. We also noticed that headshots don’t offer any damage multiplier and are the same as body shots, which drops the skill ceiling for Pros and other serious gamers.

Our closed beta had four maps and the fifth one will be available in the open beta. Through visually stunning, the maps lacked an identity. All the maps had a central zone where players would eventually find themselves only to get shot by the clever fellow who thought of flanking. Albeit, these intentions don’t happen strategically as in the case of Valorant, Apex Legends and Team Fortress 2, Concord is a bit more fast-paced than most hero shooters so it’s only natural that you move fast and shoot faster. It lacks a method to the madness.

Each character is distinct and can move, slide, run and jump. Some can double jump and even float in the air. You also get two abilities unique to each character and a weapon to do the shooting. Not all characters can run, jump and dodge the same way or at the same speed, so you’ll always want a team that has a balance of both, a good offence is rewarding but a good defence can sometimes change the outcome of the match. Once you find yourself the character that best suits your play style then the rewards for sticking around are as good as receiving a paper crown with your Happy Meal. It makes me wonder where are the amazing cosmetics that you paid ₹2,499 for? The first few levels barely unlock a gun buddy or something similar.

There are three game modes currently in Concord with a new one to be added in Open Beta. Trophy Hunt lets you kill and collect rival crew’s bounty cards, the first team to collect the most wins. This is a bit more fun because it embraces Concord’s fast-paced action.

Cargo Run is a no-respawn mode where you collect and plant a bomb and then defend it from the rival team. In most matches, teams would start fighting before the other team would even get to pick the Blue Buddy robot package (bomb) from the centre of the map. This is a good reminder that strategic team planning and slow action are not what Concord is going for.

Clash Point is a round-based, no-respawn game mode where teams compete to control a single capture zone at a central location on the map. Again, the centralised map structures mean you’ll get shot from any direction. You’ll never really be able to camp in this game which is good but that’s also a level of strategy that is missing. It’s as good as Call of Duty multiplayer with a hero-based shooter roster.

While the initial impressions of Concord seem a bit underwhelming simply because of the price, the game still promises to bring a lot more stuff into the final launch. Maybe we’re being too harsh on the game but Concord promises an evolving universe with maps and game modes. So surely tune back in when we get the full game. You’ll also see how the Concord universe plans out through beautifully animated cut scenes so hold on to your wallets till it eventually launches.