Golem25

@Rich33 if that makes you sick, I can't imagine you do well on rollercoasters.

Ultimately, Concord flopped because no one asked for a 40 Dollar hero shooter featuring the Temu versions of the Guardians of the Galaxy in 2024.

Just to point out that the review has a higher wordcount than the peak CCU on Steam has players.

Firewalk and Sony willingly - and I assume, knowingly - launched a 40 Dollar game into a marketplace crowded by established competitors that are mostly free to play.

Not only that, but they got half of the hero shooter genre wrong; the heroes. The artstyle has no mass market appeal. Everyone looks and/or feels like they're in a Guardians of the Galaxy dvd you ordered off Temu.

Meanwhile, games with actual attractive characters like The First Descendant and Stellar Blade are making bank. I'm not saying every game should have anime girls, but it would have doubled the CCU here. Easily.

Anyhow. Concord launched with a fifth of Lawbreakers' peak. Just over a twentieth of what Suicide Squad launched with. That is the game's beginning, and its end. It will be on PS Plus in 12 to 18 months, it will be F2P within 24 to 30, and it will shut down one to two years after that. While that is pure conjecture and thus should not be used to determine a review score, it is so plausible to me that I could not fathom dropping 35 quid on it. Clearly others feel the same. There is a non-zero chance that this might be the E.T. moment for the live service genre - that's how colossal this bomb looks.

Looking forward to this one, the first three games in the series were good fun.

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!

Would give it a try on PS Plus, sounds novel enough

@TheUnrestCure "I should just hang out on the Steam forum to look for high-quality #$%^posting like the "General Playercount Watch Thread""

This but unironically.

@TheUnrestCure I'm really happy for you. Or sad that happened. Ain't reading all that. The beta, which they suspiciously threw open for everyone, was ass. 40 bucks for that, lord almighty.

I'd argue that Concord is best not played. Ever. There are plenty of hero shooters with vastly superior features and gameplay that you can access completely free of charge. Imagine paying 40 bones for the 'privilege' of sitting in Concord's lobbies instead. Or 60, if you're one of those stunningly brave folks who wanted three days early access.

Am I supposed to know who 'Lashana Lynch' is, considering her name is specifically called out? Sounds like the stage name for someone acting in movies for especially mature audiences.

Anyhow, I really enjoyed the first three Dark Pictures games (especially House of Ashes), skipped the fourth because the setting looked dumb, but this new setting looks to be the best yet - love me some sci-fi. Hopefully they rotated out the face models, though; it felt like they only had maybe a dozen of them, and they were constantly re-used throughout the first three games (e.g. the two guys from the prologue of the first game were playable in the second and third). Really killed immersion for me every time.

'An episode dedicated to beloved PS Studios titles'

Glad to note that Concord is a separate episode, because I was about to object to the word 'beloved' in that tagline.

Hangar 13 again? Easy pass then. Mafia 3 was insulting on so, so many levels. Unless every single individual developer who worked on Mafia 3 has been forcibly moved on, I will not be giving this new one the time of day.

@Shepherd_Tallon due to all the collectibles, it's not. The 100% is even worse.

If it's less than 70 hours' worth of effort, I might go for it once the game makes the desperation jump to PS Plus Essential this time next year. Even though it means having to play all these ugly ass characters.

If it lists like a sinking ship, floods like a sinking ship, and disappears from view like a sinking ship.... Concord has 'colossal failure' written all over it.

The art style makes me want to vomit, really don't get what everyone sees in it. Glad for the people that like it, but this is an easy pass for me.

Every often I think 'man, executives must be so smart to have reached such high positions' but then I remember Randy Pitchford exists.

Unbound, ruhroh.

It was never going to be on Plus Extra for long, being a relatively recent AAA game and all - turns out it was a six month contract, then. Its average Trophy rarity on PSNProfiles was falling nicely pretty much ever since it was added, but that's sure to rise as Trophy hunters now flock to it.

Glad I finished it way back in April. Pretty unremarkable game, most of it is just filler. Easy Plat though.

Upon further review, can I just say, how do these cutscenes help? We've seen two now and they're the flattest, most uninspiring things ever.

It's just people standing around, mouthing lore dumps with little to no context. I guess the message from the vignette above was, green man silly and space guild bad? The lady has an attitude, and the Discount Soldier 76 has a speech impediment? Thanks, I guess.

All I'm really getting here is that there is simply no character interaction beyond pointless quips, tossed around between obvious rip-offs of characters or tropes that were done much, much better elsewhere.

Concord sells itself on its characters, but then why did they decide to only offer this vignettes, rather than the opportunity to use the ship as a hub, walk around, and get bits and bobs of dialogue out of the characters? Think Mass Effect's Normandy. I can't imagine people would want to rewatch these vignettes more than once, if that.

'We have Guardians of the Galaxy at home'-levels of writing.

This game is the gift that keeps on giving. The last time I had this much fun laughing at a game I didn't buy was Lawbreakers.

Rocksteady threw itself off the live service cliff and makes a point of hitting every single rock on the way down.

Two years of support tops, then mothballing and eventual server culling

I hope someone within Rocksteady is compiling all documents, emails, etc. they can find and hiding them away for future generations, because this game's spectacular failure should be studied for decades to come.

The playercount on Steam went as low as 48. 48 Concurrent players. There was a day where the peak playercount was just 100. This game took 7 years and 200 millions bucks to make. And what did it net Rocksteady and WB? Unlimited ridicule.

EDIT; also worth noting that they made a point of dissing Harley's Akrham Knight outfit in the base game, yet have now gotten so desperate to recoup some of the losses that they're now going to sell it in the in-game shop. With some alterations, of course, because the Arkham Knight version was obviously waaaaaaaaaay too revealing for this set of devs to approve of.

Know what other game did this? Suicide Squad. Know what the playercount for that was on Steam yesterday? Between 50 and 180 throughout the entire day.

Still dead on arrival

I'm sorry.

Even FARMING SIMULATOR now has a Season Pass?

Really? What a load of crop.

I think it's perfectly fair to judge the devs on the basis of this demo.

Selecting, preparing, and releasing this small slice of gameplay out of everything this supposedly big and long game has available isn't some accidental overnight decision. It being a stinky poopy and claiming 'oh, but the rest might actually smell nice' despite coming from the same point of origin is such a fine display of mental gymnastics, people saying as much ought to be in Paris this summer.

Never mind that the gaming press by and large runs interference for big publishers on the regular, but couldn't bring themselves to be more positive about this particular game. Modern Star Wars is always an instant 'never touch' for me but now I'm looking forward to seeing whether it bombs.

Same devs as American Fugitive, which was a fantastic game. If you're on the fence, get off it and give this game a chance.

@UltimateOtaku91 You're so real for posting this

Think this will be DOA but happy to be proven wrong - if only it was on Steam day one so we could track the Steamcharts numbers.

@ProfessorNiggle JC4 and especially JC3 came nowhere close to JC2. Something about that game was just chef's kiss. Still holds up to this day too.

Driving game; meh

Driving game in HK; ZOMG!

Yeah, I am biased. Where is my Sleeping Dogs re-remaster?

Wasn't for me, but I largely put that down to being old now.

E3 2009 just hits different when you're 16 compared to State of Play 2024 when you're 31.

That being said, showing more or better games would help. When your lead title is a discount version of Guardians of The Galaxy meets Overwatch, you give yourself a mountain to climb.

Idk man, appreciate it's not appropriate but this just looks cringe-to-play. Years behind the curve, and none of the characters speak to me as they all seem to busy ticking boxes in terms of tropes and the like.

Thinking back to the PS360 era, I had absolutely zero interest in the original. Never understood what people saw in it. That it got a sequel, hey, sure, guess it sold well enough. But again, from everything I saw of it, I could only muster extreme apathy. Seems that was a more widespread sentiment than anticipated given the noise made by what has turned out to be a vocal minority of fans.

Anyone else used to misread this name as Infogames? Just me? Takes me back to the 90's, ooft.

@Bluetrain7 If anything that tells me that Push Square are doing it right. I've not often read reviews where my own score would deviate by more than one or at most two points either way, and every score is backed up appropriately. I trust the team here a fair bit more than IGN or Gamespot, especially when I doubt they could possibly have a stake (financial or otherwise) in giving games lower-than-average ratings.

@LordAinsley My bad, looks like I read it as a 6.

I will not be supporting this game, or even trying it for free via Plus - it is simply not for me. I think I wholeheartedly disagree with a few things the developers have opted for during development, based on this review and the various previews and discussions of the game. I expect others will share that sentiment.

Maybe they were better off making a picturebook rather than a video game, because it sounds like they invested too much time in aspects of development that are really rather inconsequential when the core game and its mechanics are this poor.

On that basis, I would argue that the score is too high. It's a game, something to be played, so the story shouldn't be able to carry it to a six. This sounds like a 4 or 5, no higher than that. That's my opinion, though, and I respect the writer's views.

HANGAR 13 MENTIONED, GAME SENT TO 'NEVER BUY LIST'

No, but for real. Those character models look dreadful. Dreadful. Might give it a spin once it comes to PS Plus Essential, but even then I'm probably still more likely to never touch it.

I like historical accuracy and I commend the devs for the approach taken. Nice to see such a success story come out of a crowdfunded effort.

'We have decided to disband Hangar 13, and are looking to sell the Mafia IP'.

RAYMAN 4 WAS CANCELLED BECAUSE OF WlNNlE THE POOH'S RUMBLY TUMBLY ADVENTURE HMGGGNFGNGGNFFG AAAAAAAARGGGGHFHHHH

@Jacko11 Mafia 2 to Mafia 3 was one of the biggest drop-offs between games in recent history.

Mafia 2 wasn't even perfect, in fact it was deeply, deeply flawed. But Mafia 3 was far below par in so many different areas, from story to gameplay to technical aspects to the very foundations of the game. A broken Trophy to boot. Still one of the best/worst Crowbcat videos to date, and that is saying something.

They fired the absolute midwit who founded the studio, but Mafia 3 as a game showed that the rot permeated the entire organization. It should have been disbanded or forced put out shovelware forever.

HANGAR 13?!

This game immediately went on the 'never, ever touch' list. I have NOT forgotten how utterly, utterly rancid Mafia 3 was. Them being forced to pump out annual sports games would handily keep them away from other franchises, so this is good news.

I sat the PS4 generation out, meaning I've been able to pick up great games for 'free' via PS Plus, never needing to buy any. I'm going to keep working through older games and staying behind the curve like that, because the thought of dropping 120 quid on a single game makes my head hurt. I don't care for post-Lucas SW, so I might not even play this when it hits Plus circa 2028.

Actually really enjoyed this via PS Plus, platted it three times in fact (PS5, PS4 EU, PS4 NA). Not a good game, but enjoyable if that makes sense?

281 concurrent players on Steam right now, baybee.

NEW TROPHlES YEAH BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

This would have double the number of active players, if not triple, if the characters were anime girls instead of these weird plasticky things they went with.