If you don’t already know, we reported yesterday that Concord is getting shut down. Less than a month after it’s launch. Why bother with a review at this point? I really enjoyed my experience with it and have worked hard to share it with you. So it’s better late than never. Not to mention, we can cross our fingers that this game could come back from the dead.
Why has it taken this long to write? Because for a multi-player game, I wanted to give the developers time to tweak and update the game a little bit before judging it. I also felt that with its secondary selling point being its story, it’s worth waiting to at least see week 2’s cut scene.
Since we are on the topic of cut scenes, let’s dive right in to the bad. Like I just stated, it’s story is the game’s secondary selling point. They are relying heavily on you caring about these characters from these short clips that last 2 minutes. They give you no information, nor do they push a narrative. Given time, maybe we could have seen one start to unfold. Regardless, why care about a story or it’s characters from a 2 minute clip of a couple characters talking about shit from a universe we don’t understand.
I think the idea is that we will read the Galaxy Log to have a better understanding of its universe. So that way we appreciate the characters interacting in these small scenes more. However you would have to hold a gun to my head to get me to read this galaxy log. It’s not that the writing is bad, it’s just that there is so much disorganized text scattered on a screen, that it just looks like a giant wall of words; bland and uninteresting.
Telling a good narrative is hard, even harder in a multi-player only game. With so much focus being on its characters and story, I had higher hopes for better story telling. Short attention spans of players looking to hop quickly in to a game to shoot stuff are not gonna read all that text in a galaxy log. You are going to have a hard enough time getting them to not skip the 2 minute cut scene. I had faith in them that they could make a good quality story, but there is simply a lack of a story to tell unfortunately.
While the characters are likeable, the character design is simply bad. There are a couple characters I like and have no quarrel with. But that literally 2 or 3 out of 16. Why is this a problem? Well, like any video game, when you progress you unlock things that you want to unlock. The items you unlock and skins you unlock are so nonsequential or just plain ugly.
Biggest complaint I have with the progression/unlocks, is that the most rare/exotic items are uglier or simply don’t add enough to the character to make it exciting. High value items should get you excited and amped up to work towards the goal of unlocking it. Below are two pictures of a character with his first skin vs his final unlock skin.
However, one thing that impressed me about the customization was that the developers show acknowledgement for gloves being a cool thing to customize given the game is first person. That’s about the only redeeming quality to the customization. The actual gun skins are bland and have no excitement to them. I reached level 10 with a character and had 2 skins. One was grey, the other pale green. The next unlock was going to be dark grey. Eventually I would unlock a pale red, but that was the most exciting one.
The challenges can be fun and can be obtainable for most people that have varying time constraints to play the game. It feels good at the end of a match to see all the XP bars go up across all the characters you played and to see your progression in the different challenges go up. However, this experience is tainted by the reminder that the rewards are simply not good so why should I care about hitting the next level?
To wrap up any other negative remarks I might have towards the game, 3 game modes and a small amount of maps seems to be its biggest con given its price tag. I at least expected more maps given the quality I expected.
This is a great segue into the good aspects of the game. While there are few maps, I found it didn’t bother me too much because the map design was so supremely crafted that I found it so fun to just rinse and repeat. Map design is hard to get right in a multiplayer and Firewalk Studios knows how to make a damn good map.
There are 16 characters in the game. While there are certainly balancing issues, this is not uncommon for hero shooters and is serviceable through updates. So it feels pointless to hash out my feelings on characters I personally feel need nerfed or buffed.
Most people, including myself, have a lot to say about the poor character design. I will, however, say that you can tell each character was made with so much love and attention. Every character is given abilities and weapons that feel perfectly thought out to match them. Switching between the characters and learning how they all operate is so much fun to learn and master. Each character is so unique from the other that they provide such a different gameplay experience.
If you read this far you are probably waiting to see a 2/10 score, maybe you think I even hate the game. This game is a 7/10 for me. Why? Because even with all the negatives, the gun play is seriously that good. I didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t care about rewards. I didn’t care about lack of maps or balancing issues. Getting to learn all the different fun ways you can approach the game with all the different characters was such a blast, that you forget all the negatives.
The gun play is on a level that matches the greats, such as Halo, Destiny 2, and Overwatch. It is worthy of that praise and its a shame to see it shut down so soon. I really hope this game has the comeback it so rightfully deserves.
Check out our Youtube link above to see a quick 22 minute video of me getting a couple kills with each character.
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