Developer Firewalk Studios has spent the last couple of weekends getting Concord into the hands of players on PS5 and PC, gathering feedback and info on its imminent multiplayer shooter. Now that things have wrapped up, the studio has posted a thread on social media, going over a few common questions that basically outline what to expect from the game when it launches on 23rd August.
You can follow the thread above, but we'll summarise here. At launch, Concord will feature 12 maps and six modes, but more of both will arrive as part of regular post-launch updates. These updates will also bring new characters to the game, and everything will be free of charge.
In terms of earnable rewards, the game will include "hundreds" of cosmetic items for your Freegunners, all of which can be unlocked by completing Jobs and levelling up your characters and account — playing the game, basically. You can get character and weapon skins, weapon charms, victory and defeat poses, and more.
It's also worth noting that the game won't have a battle pass. "We wanted to focus our attention on making Concord a rewarding and robust experience on day one, where just playing the game, leveling up your accounts and characters, and completing jobs yields meaningful rewards," the team says.
One complaint about the game we kept seeing from the beta was the lack of penalty for quitting a match before it ended, or empty slots on teams not being filled. Firewalk says it's "exploring a variety of methods" to combat this issue.
The game won't feature any solo player-focused modes (such as Free for All) at launch, but the developer seems open to exploring different ideas for modes as it supports the game long term. Training modes will be accessible on release, however, letting you get to grips with the game's mechanics before you hop into matches.
There's more detail in the thread as mentioned, but that's the gist of it. All the answers sound positive to us, though of course the question remains whether Concord will get the chance to deliver on its promises; beta test player numbers were low, and sentiment around the game remains broadly apathetic.
Are you onboard for Concord when it arrives next month? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source x.com]
Comments 27
Hello darkness my old friend....
While no Battle Pass sounds good on the surface, I wonder if it’ll ultimately result in people feeling like they have no reason to engage with the game.
While the “fun” should, in theory, be in the playing, I imagine players who are used to a steady stream of content and unlocks will feel like they’ve “done everything” pretty fast.
No battle pass is a good thing, but they need to speed up the progression and give out better rewards when leveling up. The cosmetic rewards in the beta were total crap for the fourteen levels you got stuff for. I'm also curious how generous they'll be with the premium currency since we all know damn well it will have a rotating item shop at launch with skins. If it's anything like how Helldivers II does it, then cool. But if it makes the progress and getting actually good cosmetics a lot more annoying, I can see that becoming a problem too.
And this is sort of a perfect encapsulation of my true problem with the game: this is a studio with lots of talent. Loads of shooter veterans, many of whom had a hand in numerous competitive multiplayer titles.
And yet, DESPITE ALL THAT TALENT, they still didn't design a solution for a blatant problem that ANYONE could see coming in regards to leaver penalties (or AT LEAST provide a backfill system in matchmaking).
How THE FCUK are you, a month or so from release, only looking into solutions to something people could tell you would be a problem IMMEDIATELY?!?
This stuff has been an issue for YEARS in other titles. Solutions to leavers have been implemented in COUNTLESS other titles. To not have one is fundamentally showing your ass as a team that doesn't fully understand their product, nor their target player base. It's a bigger problem than anything else with this game, as it is a failure of the team at its core.
no way 40 a game is going to be able to sustain all the free things they want to add for more than a year. overwatch sold over 50 million copies and even that only lasted about 6 years. concord is gonna have to add microtransactions/battle pass at some point. thats if it even lasts a year
@RBMango This is the sort of game that could have set itself apart by not having a battle pass, but have a specific challenge in-game for every little tchotchke/reward. Make it a game where playing the game and playing it in certain ways automatically rewards you with stuff to SHOW how good you are with characters.
"Oh damn, that person has [such and such a skin]. Damn. They really pulled off [crazy challenge]!"
Then they could have added more and more as the game went on, but still kept it fundamentally tied to in-game performance.
The biggest problem with battle passes is they're JUST a grind. There is no skill involved. You can suck and still slowly grind them out. But a challenge-based system could keep players engaged for hours and play better to the sort of game/community they're trying to build.
Not gonna lie, with that approach, if this wasn’t DoA, I’d definitely purchase. That type of progression is exactly what I want from a multiplayer title. It sounds like how Halo used to be.
firewalk have been so focused on making Concord fair and balanced they have actually over thought it and not actually put in things that make games engaging
Played it for several hours, and I felt the characters were totally bland, despite a high quality of presentation. The humour fell flat, feeling like a poor man's Guardians (as many have said), without giving any reason to care about any character. I'm not that fussed about cosmetics, and the few I unlocked seemed totally boring and pointless (a keychain for a gun that you never even see?). After so many hours of playing the same game type, it just got incredibly boring, and certain characters seemed entirely useless compared to others. If the game was free, I wouldn't want to play it; for £40, or thereabouts, I wouldn't even look at it.
Hmm not gonna lie i don't like the idea of not having a battle pass, it's a reason for people to keep playing everyday and it's quite satisfying seeing the pass progress and unlock stuff. I think they could have added a free pass every few months like in Splatoon 3 or even a paid one but with the currency easily earnt in game like with HellDivers 2.
Its not a deal breaker as there are still things to unlock by levelling up the characters but once those characters I play as are maxed out then what?
I'll probably use my Stars points to get a £20 voucher for it. Because while I want to support a new 1st party studio, I don't trust the rest of the world to support it enough.
Hopefully Sony understand that the best case scenario is that it gradually grows an audience through continued updates and features that players want.
I'm in such a weird spot with Concord. I ended up really liking the beta more than I thought I would. I want to purchase it. The $40 price tag doesn't really bother me much...but at the same time I don't want to waste money on it if there is no community there.
It's quite the conundrum. If it at least had some sort of campaign I'd be more willing to jump in. At the moment I think im going to wait to see if a community forms around it.
It's sounding better all the time though. I'm really interested in how it does.
@Toot1st there are gonna be cosmetics you can buy but now battle passes
@Korgon right there with you. Really want this game to do well but things aren’t looking good so far for it.
@UltimateOtaku91 and right here is one of the worst takes ever lol 😂
@UltimateOtaku91 I didn't even know Splatoon had "battle passes" now. I guess there's no need to buy Splatoon 4 then. So long, old favorite online shooter.
Why does anyone DESIRE pumping money into games they paid for?! I'm starting to think anyone who plays online games is the entire problem in gaming. It seems like playing games isn't what people like, it's the thrill of spending money they like. Retail therapy, digitized.
@NEStalgia The battle pass in Splatoon isn't a paid one, it's a free one that gets changed every three months. Also if the game is free and people enjoy playing it as much as they would playing £60 single player games then I don't see the problem with them spending some money every now and then. I've spent £8 in Apex Legends over the last 4 years for one battle pass and that battle pass gave me enough free currency to get the next one and then same again with that one etc and I've put in around 800 hours in that time. Yet you can spend £60 on some single player games and complete them in 10-15 hours, so £60 for 15 hours of enjoyment vs £8 for 800 hours of enjoyment. Obviously it varies on the person as some spend more but play less but it's up to each individual person to put their own value on their enjoyment.
@UltimateOtaku91 Oh, a "free battlepass"? Not really a "battle pass" then, is it? Just seasonal content? At least Splat4 is back on the table
Yeah I can see "battle passes" for an F2P, it's not a charity, I don't mind if that's the whole payment system, but Splatoon is $60 and this is $40 so that changes that equation dramatically.
Though most people don' spend $60 on a 15 hour single player game, that's why everything is a 120 hour open world bloated epic. The full price 15 hour game died on PS360. But yeah, we're not talking spending a total of $10 on a game and calling it too much, we're talking about spending $40+ on a game then spending $15 quarterly for years to come (or monthly if we look at that new Apex tier list, yikes!)
Granted, I'm playing XIV which is probably more expensive than any battlepass shooter, but MMORPGs are a special sort of snowflake in general, and I get that the costs of running the worldservers is extreme compared to shooters (where shooters even have dedicated servers even...)
@jrt87 Yeah, Splatoon is the only modern online shooter I've bothered with, and I do love it, but prior to that my last online shooter was probably Quake 2 lol.....a different world.
I was expecting to hate the beta, but I actually kinda liked it. It’s nothing special but I thought it had some things going for it and liked the really chill vibe of the game and colourful retro art style. I liked the quick round times and it gave me that one more game feeling. Characters were a but cringe but I ended up putting 7hrs into the beta and felt a bit gutted when it went down.
At present it’s a 6/7 at best but I liked it’s an exclusive Sony FPS and new IP (that may be rose tinting my outlook). Wish it did better than it did player wise, if the price point was FTP or £15/20 then I think it wouldn’t be getting as much hate. I’ll be interested to see how it does but I imagine how it’ll play out.
Really wanted a kill zone or resistance reboot/new entry or a modern SOCOM. Sony is sitting on a gold mine of perfect FPS/TPS IPs for a game like this and it’s like they don’t even know it. Looks like they’ll take an L with concord which is a shame.
@Korgon I’ve just posted what could have been a reply to your post lol. I’m exactly of the same opinion.
Definitely have a point re the community. I don’t mind the price as I enjoyed it much more than I thought. It’s the idea of no one else playing it not long after launch that puts me off.
It’s not great that it’s getting the bad press/such negative numbers either as that’ll push people away too. I really do think there’s people out there that see the bad press/numbers and are turned off immediately without playing it. I nearly was but thought what is there to loose and had a go and enjoyed it more than I imagined.
@Korgon I’m 100% feeling the same exact way. I liked it better than any competitive shooter I’ve played in a while. On one hand, I’m wondering if nobody actually played it, and, on the other hand, I’m wondering if I’ve got poor taste and I’m out of touch.
"Y-yes of course we won't have a battle pass! E-e-every future content update will be free of charge! We'll give you skins, cosmetics, everything! Single Player? U-uh...yes! Yes we'll work single player!! J-just please for the love of God buy our game!! Sony is going to tear us a new one of this flops!!!!"
The only good thing coming from this game will be the desperate announcements being comedy gold as it dies quickly. Sony has so many other IP's they could have remade, rebooted or made a sequel that would actually make money. They really have no clue about gaming.
@Lavishturtle "They really have no clue about gaming"
If Sony really have no clue about gaming, PS1 would've died back in the 90's along with Panasonic 3DO and other failed video games console.
Like come on now. Don't throw silly exaggerate take just because Sony made blunders with live service games and not yet revive some of their old IP's.
It's good they took on feedback (get the reputation/impression to change but that's not enough for people, it's effort to prove, not words) but if a training mode wasn't part of the plans they clearly don't understand how to make a game possible to ease players in, rushing is and pressing buttons isn't ideal for people to learn.
Vet Devs should notice problems in the distinction (not make the same they always have/bend it to a trend) or other key helpful features (not go oh MP Vet gamers will play it, uh they make up how much of your potential audience/won't pull away from other games?).
They need a good business model to survive.
Attachment/what always worked/unable to transition. I do question competition aware or dev passion. Hogwarts Legacy is a turn around of a non-open world dev studio compared to a Redfall, it says a lot how some people do design regardless of book/movie IP or open worlds as reference. Avalanche were dead/revived & made HL.
If I know that average people are into say gardening, recommend them a gardening game, or a movie/tv series they enjoy & make sure a game with easy enough controls. So why wouldn't that logic apply? Expert mentality? Not great bad communication between staff & understanding competition. They compete but don't understand the format/efforts they put into it to differ from the originators. Or Pub/Execs are the problem which yes can be the case then the devs under the bus.
Data is one thing, art & how to make it fun/compete is another. If people notice the art but not the gameplay design same as a song with it's crazy techniques but more so how it a human voice/lyrics or single/album art that's another factor. Visuals, social modernising or gameplay. I prefer gameplay/aka technique smartly designed.
Studio should look to others not as competition but as 'hmm we should do this to learn from as this benefits players understanding our game, prototyping concepts', any smart developer prototypes or draws/story boards something wouldn't they? This makes it a distinct product and so on not 'we will compete but just copy paste, enough character & other design details/game flow to not get sued' yeah I love when games do that sigh, something we gamers notice & overanalysis.
Ah Pub/Exec make that decisions, skilled or building up/translating sure but they need a balance of creative staff & zoned technical mindset staff or else we end up with repeat/dull products with eh level design/character movesets/maps/flow of a game. Or those with real mentality then 'fiction' mentality.
Or a thing called QA testers or even devs testing their game, understanding what 'fun' is and how it scales per features added/removed/tweaked per game.
If they can understand how software development works but with an art twist it isn't that hard.
It's like with a youtuber if they just copy paste that's on them, they create their own style not just I like these creators, copy and paste the games they play and humour.
They need enough to stand out, they can't always mimic someone, play the same games as skilled or have the same games they like.
They need a niche. If Sony has story driven movie games as their niche to stand out now (as well as repackage into other media for their other departments to work with) then the variety they had prior, how is a multiplayer game that sees a trend but doesn't understand how to stand out become something. oh wait. People don't research the way they SHOULD or research at all.
Definitely from the betas content doesn't look to be robust at all. Far from it, almost embarrassingly barebones.
Generally the game feels like the tacked on multiplayer mode on games in the 360/PS3 era (which is awesome) but in the current generation of consoles. It's very strange.
In some ways I like the art, the world, and some of the characters when you work as a team.
In others the game is too slow, I don't get the story, there is far too little to do, and the variations of characters seems kind of lame (so far).
They need to prove the amount of content coming and the speed of which we are getting maps, NEW characters, modes, and content. Saying it's coming is fine and we'll but we need a date like the release date of new content incoming.
Feels like a huge gamble at $40, could be dead within 1-2 months.
I am still going to get the game, but, they need to address these issues and not let it fester for months.
Also, some of the "free cosmetics" in the beta weren't great at all. Another thing for this game will be a pick a theme for season 1. If they're going to let it roll like it is now. I can see alot yikes coming their way.
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