GameCentral reports back from a weekend of playing the Concord beta, but does Sony’s new live service online shooter offer anything new? If there’s one thing that Concord’s controversial reveal made clear, it’s that it’s not looking to reinvent the wheel. Its unveiling had an unparalleled amount of negativity for a Sony exclusive, with complaints that both its gameplay and its Guardians of the Galaxy style characters appeared generic and uninspired. Having spent the weekend playing the beta it’s clear that these concerns are entirely warranted; the question is whether the lack of originality is so distracting that it ruins an otherwise competent online shooter.
Concord is not a difficult game to describe. Imagine Overwatch with different characters and you’re 80% there. However, the gunplay is superior to Blizzard ’s game and while still not quite up to the standards of Destiny 2 it’s clearly looking to Bungie for inspiration in that regard.
There is no unique selling point or gimmick with Concord though. There’s no big new idea to distinguish it from its rivals, just the fact that it’s well made and, to judge by the beta, refreshingly bug free. Once you drill down into the details though there are some minor surprises, perhaps the biggest being that there are far more playable characters than the reveal implied: 16 in total and one of Concord’s most impressive achievements is that they’re all very distinctive, with some interestingly peculiar abilit.
