
Sony's latest PS5 (and PC) release is here. It's called Concord, and it's a player-versus-player hero shooter. Yeah, it's not the kind of title that we've all come to expect of PlayStation Studios, but then this is part of the firm's relatively fresh foray into the world of live service gaming.
At the time of writing, we're still working on our review for Concord, but it should be ready to go as soon as we've had a play around on public servers. Generally speaking, though, those who have bought in seem to think it's pretty good. Of course, the real test will be whether it can maintain a healthy number of players over the coming weeks and months.
Which brings us to the all-important question: are you playing Concord? As always, vote in our poll, and then explain yourself in the comments section below.
Are you playing Concord? (5,795 votes)
- Yes, of course I'm playing it
- I plan on playing it later down the line
- Nah, I'm not sure about the game yet
- No, Concord just isn't for me
Comments 114
No it’s not for me. Never will be.
But for the people that have spent money I hope they get some enjoyment
I rarely dabble in multiplayer games so this is a hard pass for me.
Nah, for 1 I'm not interested in hero shooters like overwatch and 2 the characters are butt ugly so that pushed me even further away from trying it.
The poll is missing the option for "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Given the choice between spending $40 on Concord, lighting $40 on fire and watching the flames dance with retina quality, or playing an identical but much more popular game to Concord absolutely free, Concord is my third choice option.
played overwatch since release until a week before "ow2" patch. Had a look at this during the beta, for me it look like an OW from wish, with characters that are not for me.
had a look at the steam charts, looks really bad, will be interesting to see when this game move to F2P.
Where the option for, 'it tried it and I didn't like it'?
@NEStalgia Oh come on, it's not that bad!
I get it doesn't appeal to everyone and that's completely fine, but there's definitely worse games out there. Haha!
I didn't dislike the beta. But I got my fill from it already.
As of this comment the all-time peak on Steam is 622 players 😬 maybe there will be a giant spike later but if things stand like this it will potentially be the biggest multiplayer flop of the year (or generation)!
In hindsight it was a very bad idea to release it a day after Black Myth: Wukong which is what everyone is focused on right now 😕
I've put two hours into it today and enjoyed my time with it, no issues with waiting times so far. As I've said before if I can get 50 hours out of this game then that's money we'll spent for me.
I can definitely see the game getting added to Playstation Plus within 6 months but boosted player numbers that way does nothing for revenue as there's no MTX. I think free to play with MTX is the way this game should have gone.
I'm waiting to see how it looks a few weeks from now. If it looks like it has a steady community I'll jump in. The beta was pretty darn good although I only liked half the game modes on offer. I hope it succeeds!
@Tecinthebrain I don't think it will affect its numbers at all. Had it come out the week before Black Myth, it would have done the same, i.e. not very good.
@naruball Yeah, I don't think Black Myth is having any impact on this game at all. Of course it's always better to not be competing against a juggernaut game, but they're targeting completely different players and audiences.
Black Myth or Concord? Black Myth it is and then SW Outlaws next week 😁
Didn’t get a chance to try the beta so it’s a no from me. Not my kind of game.
I've not heard one compelling argument about why the character designs are "ugly". Is it because certain people just want all gaming characters to look hot or something?
The folks working on Fairgame$ must be crapping themselves right now, right? Seeing as how their game was even worse received when it was announced than Concord.
@get2sammyb Skull and Bones isn't bad either. It's just that there's a few thousand games that are better to spend that time on instead...
@jrt87 It's targeting the wrong Whedon script. It's trying to do Avengers, but it's more comparable to Firefly...
@AdamNovice The characters look like Fortnite fanart made by someone that only draws lumpy curves and only has two bottles of paint: One labeled "Lisa Frank" and the other labeled "Meow Wolf."
@NEStalgia Considering Concord looks nothing like Fortnite your argument falls flat.
No.
But about 600 to 700 people on Steam are. And that's something. I mean, it's fewer people than Skull & Bones currently has in-game, but it is something. Still more than 6-7 times as much as Suicide Squad!
@jrt87 All your doing is regurgitating the same tired comments I've been hearing for the past several months. It doesn't make for compelling argument.
I could say the same for OW's cast...gruff soldier guy, a grim reaper who they imaginatively called Reaper, Beast from the X-men except he's gorilla and Clint Eastwood Cowboy.
I'm masofdas on PSN if you do want to add me, so can get the buddy trophy
@AdamNovice Its just another excuse to hate on the game, infact most people already decided to hate on the game before any gameplay or characters were revealed. And then there's certain people who just hate anything related to Playstation so their comments automatically become invalid.
Nope not my style of game I did try it though
@AdamNovice then I’d over watch cast already have it, why have concord copied that?
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I just want to know if Mike Mignola is receiving royalties for Hellboy being in the game.... 🤭
Edited: because autocorrect is in fact autowrong!
@UltimateOtaku91 No, people don't hate the game; they just don't care. It doesn't offer anything new, and there are free alternatives at the same gameplay and graphical level. If I'm paying for a multiplayer FPS game, I want top-notch character, gun, and movement animations, along with excellent sound design - like in the new COD MW series, for example. Sadly, Concord is nowhere near that...
The decision to make this a $40 release killed any chance the game had. It would still be an uphill battle even if the game was free to play. I feel bad for the people who made it and have to see such a toxic reaction but it's a good lesson for sony to see that their audience is not into this kind of game.
The game currently has a "very positive" review average on steam with 84% being good reviews, so it's obvious the majority playing the game are enjoying it and hopefully via that rating and word of mouth the player count will rise over the next few days (on steam atleast).
@matekomlosi if they simply didn't care, it wouldn't receive so many comments. Plenty of games have been ignored. This isn't one of them.
If I didn’t feel like this one was going to get a fairly immediate discount, I would’ve gotten it. I liked the beta and honestly prefer it to Helldivers
Might not break 1000 on steam. The power of Day and date on PC!!! Also everything points to this thing being a brutal result. Wonder what happens to firewalk and Sony hopefully going full force down this path
I liked the beta, but definitely had my gripes. Thought the movement was a little slow and, outside of a couple, most of the characters didn't appeal to me from a gameplay standpoint. Also, with Marvel Rivals coming out this year, I've got my fun, free-to-play hero shooter set. Really hoping Firewalk are given the opportunity to refine the game with content/updates and not kicked out the door.
@AdamNovice I'm not sure if my reasoning will be compelling, but I'll try to give my perspective on these characters as succinctly as I can.
The reason I think these characters are hideous has to do with a combination of a really strange-looking color palette and costume design for a lot of them that isn't given any kind of pop or appealing visual cohesion by the semi-realistic graphics they decided to go with. I compare how they look in the game to those animated shorts Sony has been releasing. Because the animated shorts take these characters and put them in a much more personally appealing cel-shaded art direction, their colors aren't so muted and that focus on semi-realism is gone. It-Z goes from a creepy cat lady with oddly bland color tones to a much more visually interesting character with vibrant colors and a more cartoon-like face that fits the new art.
@Golem25 "Still more than 6-7 times as much as Suicide Squad!"
You're comparing an old game (which bombed) to a game that released today! Suicide Squad's all time peak is 13,459 which was considered a giant failure, I don't think Concord will even come close to that already low number 😐
Still early though, maybe somehow the game trends on social media and it picks up Steam (no pun intended) but as of now it's the worst case scenario.
@AdamNovice The designs aren't ugly they're just forgettable and generic and have that Overwatch/GotG at home feel to them.
I don't play online, unless with MY brothers. And then it's F1 or Elite Dangerous, maybe ACC. FPS and me just don't get on unless single player.
Sorry but if your going to be a hero shooter and your having to pay for it then, it has to be above and beyond what you can get for free.
Unfortunately it offers nothing, better than what games are already out there and are thriving.
Also you have to look at the free to play beta they put out and see the numbers to know that this game was dead on arrival.
Looking at the player count now, it'll be truly dead in a month.
The beta gave me old school LAN party vibes so I'm giving it a shot.
It's well put together and the gunplay is very nice. The galaxy map has so much lore too. I'd love a full campaign set in this universe.
Hopefully it has a chance to grow when word spreads that it's actually a good game.
@naruball because in the past few months, there has been a big marketing push behind it, and its news has reached a lot of people, and even now, many are writing articles about it (including here), it's naturally getting a lot of comments.
I know it doesn't fully reflect reality, but it's clear from the poll here that many people aren't interested at all. However the Steam player numbers speak for themselves. Of course, there will always be those who overdo the criticism which is sad.
Anyway, like I said before: people just don't care.
Proof: Call of Duty also gets a LOT of hate on a daily basis but tens of thousands of people are still playing it at the moment.
I might try it when it's free on Plus down the line, but even then... maybe not? I don't think it looks bad, I just am totally uninterested in the genre.
Damn, actually kinda feel bad now for the developers. Altho, if we don't voice our opinion about these online only games, they will just keep making them
No. Shot my lot
As it was yesterday, I remember the State of Play where Concord stole half of its runtime. And now comes the day it steals the entirety of our hearts. What a game
I doubt I'd even try if it was free...nvm pay for it
About 4 months ago I got into Overwatch 2 and have really been enjoying it. Being f2p helped big time.
@NEStalgia Sure, I get what you're saying. But your post implied this is like the worst game ever released and you'd rather set fire to your money than play it.
I get it's maybe not standing out in a competitive market or even not to many players' tastes, but as I said previously, it's not that bad.
@get2sammyb I think the main problem people have with this game is that this is the only PS exclusive Sony has to show for right now with nothing on the horizon so it does sting for the majority of people who care little about multiplayer games. If this had come out between a God of War and a Spiderman in the same year, no one would bat an eye. The future of PS feels very uncertain right now and that is troubling.
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To be honest, I'd rather play Overwatch 2 or Marvel Heroes before Concord, and I played Overwatch back on release in 2016.
This probably isn't a fair comparison by any means but The Sims 3 came out 15(!!!!) years ago and has double the players online right now
hahahaha that poll went about as expected
Edit: there's only 660 people playing it on Steam right now lol it's also the 24 hour peak and all time peak
Actually, I am interested a bit. I don't like all of the character designs, but the game looks like it could be good fun.
Even though, it looks very close to Overwatch, which i didn't enjoy.
The thing is, Concord costs 40€ right now. That's 40€ for an online only game, which(it seems) not many people want to get.
If the same thing happens to Concord that happened to Destruction Allstars, than it's burned money at some point.
@Nepp67 this is nothing like overwatch, concord is an arena shooter
@Nintendo4Sonic concord is an arena shooter overwatch isn't.
@MikeOrator humans like attractive humans shocker
It couldn't be any less for me. It looks like a game made by AI using the prompt "Make me an ALDI Overwatch."
@get2sammyb Not every game can be Gollum. But many try.
i’mma get to it soon
One glance was enough to turn me off. No, it's just not for me.
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I'd give it reps if it were free. Simple as.
The game wasn't worth $40.
They should have launched as free, with a $40 option to unlock every hero, forever. Like Smite does. Then let free players grind to unlock em.
This is going to pull a Battleborn right quick. And by then it'll be too late.
If it were a free to play game, I might give it a go, but I'm not going to pay for it. The reviews on Steam are not bad at 82%, but there are only 150 of them, so it's difficult to gauge at the moment. Looking at the highest player count for today on Steam, it sits as the 63rd most played game today on Steam with a peak player count of just under 31K.
However, when you compare that to Wukong that sits at 96% positive with over 250K votes, and a peak player count today of just shy of 2.3 million, I think it speaks for itself as to the potential longevity of Concord, which is why I won't buy it.
You never know, the Developers may turn it around, but I just feel that all the bases are covered by well established games of this type, and so Concord will be fighting an uphill battle to succeed...
Good one admin
@AdamNovice I dunno about ugly, but there seems to be a lack of artistic style to them. The devs have gone for realism, and I think they’ve landed in the uncanny valley. Compare to OW, which love or hate the game, at least all the characters look cool and are immediately readable in-game. Maybe it’d take more time with Concord but when I tried the beta it was quite hard to tell many of the humanoid characters apart at a distance.
Do I see just one more player more than Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League haha
This is one of those games that I would probably not even play if it becomes available on PS Plus Essentials monthly games.
@rick1987 "Not a pronoun in sight too!"
What!! 😭
So at no point in the game are the following words used in any form... I, me, my, myself, mine, we, us, our, ours, ourselves, you, your, yours, yourself, me, you, him, her, it, us, you, them.
I better not hear any of those words otherwise I might just call you a liar 😌
@AdamNovice Since when is something being called ugly objective? What criteria do you use to classify ugly or not? It’s a completely subjective idea that you can agree or disagree with…but that doesn’t invalidate their opinion.
I bought it and had a ton of fun already. 40 dollars means nothing to me and I'm not a bigot.
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I tried the beta had fun for a little while but the fun factor didn't last that long the game got really repetitive IMO. The characters special moves feel lack luster too me none of them felt cool to use but to honest I'm not a fan of these type of games
Nope, not gonna played it.
Jesus this is a massive flop. 600ish peak pc players on day one (redfall had 10 times that and suicide squad over 20 times that)?!
Sony needs a much more comprehensive change in leadership. This game should have been canned a long long time ago, and had they stopped their complete ghosting of the player base anytime in the last several years, they would have even more so seen that very obvious writing on the wall for this project.
Granted money would have been lost for sure. However riding this out to release with all the marketing, all the additional dev payroll is just complete Mismanagement and bad business as well as another toxic attempt at predation on the gaming community following the putrid smell of greed wafting from the few successful schemes still operational. Over a hundred mill wasted here, nearly 4 bill on Bungie.......
This is exactly one of the many reasons that Sony's ridiculous 'hide everything until the release window' policy is just idiocy. As is there incessant aims to chase endless growth with as little creativity and effort possible.
Just don't buy into this SH*T
@UltimateOtaku91 "no issues with waiting times so far"
Must be nice the game having almost no players.
@Fiendish-Beaver whatchu on about 😂😂
It's nowhere near the top 100 and 31k on most played lol
There are more people playing Balatro right now than Concord. And more playing Dead Cells.
But remember, publishers need to spend hundreds of millions to develop a successful modern game! I bet the marketing budget for Concord was more than the entire cost of both of those games, combined.
Thing is that people didn't realize that Concord is also a battle royale. Like, an irl one. They started with about 100 players, and soon they will all be out of the game. Concord is actually incredibly ambitious, guys.
@KeenAerondight The co-publisher (Hero Games) sent a doc to streamers warning them to not discuss Covid, quarantine, feminism, and "politics." Seems on the up and up, lol. That's actual censorship, fyi.
@UltimateOtaku91 "Its just another excuse to hate on the game, infact most people already decided to hate on the game before any gameplay or characters were revealed"
I just don't find Concord characters design looks appealing / interesting. First impression is important for me and if i don't find the characters design looks interesting then why would i forced myself to play it or even "hate" it? Hating a game that i wouldn't play is just a waste of time.
I like to think the devs adamantly and stubbornly kept telling Sony that the people with criticism were just haters and bigots and a small portion of the potential audience for the game and that they'd be just fine come launch. I can't think of any other reason why they'd refuse to correct course in any way and just push the game out as is. What a disaster, I can't believe this was supposed to be Sony's big summer game. If there was something else to play from Sony this game would have just gotten ignored and likely developed a little community like destruction all stars but with them showcasing this front and center all it did was paint a bull's-eye for players frustration with Sony and their questionable decisions lately.
Id rather strap a virtual boy to my face for a huge headache than the headache of buying concord to have it shut down 3 months
i want to say two things, people who like it enjoy it while it lasts, and to the ponies, acting entitled to the point that you want a studio shut down, you should be ashamed of yourselves, it’s just a game and it’s just business, if anything they’ll probably learn from this, not defending sony or anything, i just want the hatred to stop.
just play other games if you don’t like it, don’t act like babies or sony murdered your famlies!
you can be angry at sony, but the casuals and the company won’t care about you anyway, it’s money they after, if you want to stop supporting them and pirate all your games or buy better games, just do that, and stop complaining all day on the internet!
@AdamNovice I agree I don’t think they are ugly. I do think they are boring and super derivative though. But as soon as the put in pronouns it definitely set a certain crowd off though which I think is what started the “ugly” conversation. Unfortunately, video games are at the center of the “culture war.” Quotations used because it’s a bunch of garbage with bad actors on both sides.
@IamJT $100 says they put in "he/him" pronouns for that robot because he fights with what looks like a vacuum cleaner, lol. I don't care about that stuff, the "culture war" is tiring imo, but it's pretty funny watching these publishers trying to be so inoffensive.
No. I have zero interest in Concord and I'm not much of a pvp person anyways
@Malaise that’s exactly how i feel, i liked the beta but not for $40 unfortunately . the price tag is bull, so ill buy it when im ready and play instead of day 1 unfortunately
Should of gone free to play with microtransactionspaytowin, such a financial risky business.
@matekomlosi if you think about it, it's a chicken or the egg situation. Are people reacting this way because of the number of articles published about it or is the number of articles posted about it a reflection of the traffic that any mention of it attracts? I think it's the latter.
Just like ps+, video game sites like pushsquare post multiple articles on the very same topic (ps+ games for x month revealed, how do you feel about this month's ps+ games?) because there is so much engagement.
There is clearly a hate bandwagon at play here, just like there was with Suicide Squad and The Avengers. Few games attract that much hate.
@KeenAerondight agreed it's got a bit silly hasn't it
@Tecinthebrain your a funny man still not buying concord nice try 😂🙏
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Why is there so much hate for the game?! It's great! It's really fun especially as someone who played Overwatch for years and I love hero shooters in general! I don't like COD or anything else with generic people, and love games with actual, unique characters so Concord is great, plus it has the crew system for the added bonuses and you get more cosmetics and such for leveling up, and I'm excited to see more character variants as that's a super cool feature.
Hero shooters are one of the most fun game genres, and people seem to forget Overwatch was originally $60 (even more than only $40) and was better without all the microtransactions and unlocking heroes. Concord goes back to the old ways of paying upfront but then getting everything and I actually like that yet people seem to act like that's the worst part since they're so used to only free games now I guess. It's a fun game😞
@Icey664 Is your horizon excluding Astro Bot which comes out in 13 days?
Nah. I don't like the character designs and the maps. The gameplay is meh too so it can't make up for the former. It's a recipe for the disaster that is unfolding now. And f2p wouldn't have saved it neither.
Why should I play this? What sets it apart from Overwatch? It just isn’t interesting enough. It doesn’t differentiate itself enough from other Hero-Shooters. That’s its problem.
It could be a big hit like hell divers 2 and I'd not be interested as it's an online multiplayer game.
I don't think it looks too bad for what it is but what it is just isn't for me
I never play these types of games so my opinion does not really count. However It would be interesting to know how this compares to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League on player numbers count.
Looks like I'm part of the three-quarters who have 0 interest in this game.
I'm certain Concord is fun for some, just not for me. It launched a little too late into the hero shooter craze, and like many others I have long since had my fill.
@Intr1n5ic that's a good point, I'd forgot about that. I'm sure it'll be great, but still not quite the highs of a last of us or a horizon game that the masses are clamouring for.
@naruball I think there are no more than a few thousand people pushing this wave of hatred, but they're present on every forum, under every article, because they have nothing better to do and enjoy this. However, just a day after the release, not even 300 people are playing it, and that's a big problem...
Even based on the trailers, it didn't seem convincing, but I gave the BETA a chance, and I quit and deleted it after the second match. Actually, if I hadn’t been flooded with a bunch of articles and PlayStation notifications, I might have already forgotten about it.
They’re promoting the game as if it’s on the level of The Last of Us, Spider-Man, God of War, or COD. I guess that’s understandable since they invested a lot of money in it, but that’s probably why it’s getting so much ultra-negative criticism.
When are people going to start asking questions about Hermen Hulst?
Why is this guy not facing any scrutiny yet?
@PuppetMaster My comment wasn't aimed at people like you who genuinely don't like the game for genuine reasons. But on this site particularly and on X (Twitter) the pitchforks were out the minute Sony announced the game and that it was a live service title. That was before any gameplay or characters we're shown, the game didn't stand a chance from the get go.
@matekomlosi to be honest, I haven't noticed much promotion from Sony, but I could be wrong. I mean, the way they tend to promote their games hardly ever works (e.g. there were a ton of posts about Dreams before and after release, yet the game didn't sell well at all).
You're right about the number of players. It's way below Sony's expectations, but I believe that most people (unlike you and some others) didn't give it a chance (because it didn't appeal to them but also) because of the negativity surrounding it.
The same thing happened with the psvita, PSVR1 +2 and several other games. Any product that faces that much negativity is unlikely to change the mind of anyone on the fence. The exact opposite has happened with HellDivers 2, Hogwarts Legacy, etc.
@UltimateOtaku91 I am now both sad and jealous I didn’t think to use your glorious avatar. It’s a perfect fit 😭😞
You need to take a look at the chart for yesterday, @Cherip-the-Ripper. It was at 63, I assure you...
There are better versions of this type of game completely free, no way would I consider paying anything for Concord when much better alternatives are free
@FatalBubbles Haha as soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it as an avatar, although when Astro Bot launches in sure there's going to be tonnes of Astro themed Playstation characters to choose from. Perosnally if there's a Cloud, Tifa or Aloy then I might change it.
@naruball True, Helldivers 2 doesn’t really offer anything new either, but it had a first installment that many people played, and they could build on that. Hogwarts Legacy is the same; it was the name itself that sold the game. Honestly, I bought both at full price, and after barely 1-2 hours of playing, I got bored. Helldivers is just another TPS shooter among countless others, and Hogwarts, after an exciting start, quickly became dull (at least for me).
Yes, the problem with live service games is that since there are so many of them, you can only really sell one if there's a strong name behind it. This way, even a mediocre game (like Concord, because it is, undeniable) can achieve huge sales because a lot of people buy games just because of the name. Unfortunately, that's how we are. For example, The Last of Us multiplayer would likely have sold in huge numbers, which is why I don't understand Sony.
The only solution for Concord, in my opinion, would have been a well directed and crafted 10-15 hour single player campaign that properly introduces the characters and showcases the game’s universe. After that, the multiplayer part could have been developed, adding additional maps overtime and likely many more people would have bought it, including me.
@FuzzyOtterPaws Did you forget how good overwatch was at the beginning? it was well worth it , and something new and exciting . concord doesn’t hold a candle to 2016-2018 overwatch
Nope, not for me I'm afraid. I'm not into playing online, multiplayer, or competitively. Live service infrastructure is always a bit off-putting as well.
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