Concord was dealt terrible cards.

It’s hard enough in 2024 to convince players to try a completely new live service game when the cost of entry is simply the time it takes to download the game, but getting someone to pay $40 before they know whether or not they even like the game seems impossible.

Not only that, the mood within Concord’s community was deeply toxic from the first official reveal. The game has (wrongly) become a poster child for Sony’s perceived move away from prestige single-player titles and towards live service trends, something that the loyal PlayStation audience loudly detests.

Concord is a good shooter built on a release strategy and price point that would have been much better in 2017 and feels laughably dated today. The game – a pure live-service multiplayer hero shooter – is fun, but even at its best, it never won us over enough to tell someone playing three or four other live-service games to drop everything, pay $40 and get going.

At launch, the game has 16 characters and 6 modes. The modes are split into three playlists and it is currently not possible to opt into all modes at once or a specific favorite. These are versions of classics such as Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Domination and other classic shooters.

The matches themselves are very short, with a game of Takedown (TDM) requiring a team to score just 30 kills, meaning you have very little time to experiment with the game’s large roster in a real-world game situation (there are a few training modes, though).

Concord’s firefights are hard-hitting and reminiscent of Destiny’s Witch Hunt. The mechanics of the 16 characters barely overlap, so each fight presents a unique challenge.

However, the game is pretty bad at actually labeling your team or opponent’s abilities. This means there were firefights where we died out of nowhere with no explanation or warning. That understanding will develop over time, but we’re not sure how many will actually take the time to familiarize themselves with the entire list.

There are a decent number of maps, and while the modes are certainly inspired by or completely borrowed from other shooters, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The maps themselves aren’t very memorable in their design, aside from standout maps like Star Chamber, which feels like a classic Halo map. Others feel far too big for the number of players in each game, and often result in people wandering around for a while looking for a fight.

While gaming discourse on social media has arguably never been less valuable or more disingenuous, the “dead game” label is a recurring scourge that few games can shake off. Concord has barely been out in its full release for 24 hours, and this particular anchor feels like it’s been attached to its neck for months.

Poor beta numbers, the asking price, and the mood of the debut trailer have contributed to a game that players seemed desperate to not beat, although many who played the game before release said the gameplay itself was fun.

The cast of characters doesn’t help matters. While they’re colorful, diverse, and feature a wider range of body types than you’d normally find in modern games, they seem over-tested to the point of monotony.

Contrary to what the loudest reactionaries on X claim, this isn’t because the game’s cast is inclusive, and certainly not for some ridiculous reason like the fact that the game lists every character’s pronouns. The characters are just very forgettable.

There’s no Tracer or Widowmaker here. We look at the cast of Concord and can’t imagine any of them being embraced by a community, let alone people dressing up as them and begging to learn more about them.

There’s no Tracer or Widowmaker here. We look at the cast of Concord and can’t imagine any of them being embraced by a community, let alone people dressing up as them and begging to learn more about them.

Who are these people? Why aren’t there easily accessible biographies for each of them in the main menu? Sure, you get some background information in the Galactic Guide (which we’ll get to), but at the time of writing, unlocking more information about a particular character seems to be dependent on playing as them. Why would we do that if we have no idea who they are?

Live service games always have their difficulties with this, and while Concord goes to great lengths to make the game’s story much more relevant than most games in its genre, it does so with a cast that is almost entirely banal.

During Concord Seasons, players can log in each week and see a new cutscene that supposedly gives more insight into the crew. While these cutscenes are extremely visually impressive and would fit in with a typical Sony single-player experience, right now, outside of the context of a whole bunch of cutscenes to watch, it seems odd.

Someone who hasn’t followed any of the game’s pre-release coverage will currently encounter a cutscene that doesn’t introduce any of the characters, nor does it explain what’s at stake in the world or why you’re all shooting at each other.

The other end of Concord’s tale can be found in the Galactic Guide. This sprawling map, which would fit right into Mass Effect, is a log of all the events that have taken place in canon, and is updated as the seasons progress. We really like the concept and the execution is admirable, but it’s a bit of an odd fit and feels like it’s so built into the game that players can absolutely ignore it if they want.

While this might be a concession to casual players who don’t even want to remember character names, let alone read pages of dialogue about space politics, one feels that some incentive to get players to the “Galactic Guide” would go a long way toward getting people to actually care about Concord’s world.

This is where the character bios are buried once you unlock them. We would have liked there to be some sort of incentive like a skin or other customizable item as a reward for reading the well-written backstories, but currently this is more of a “nice to have” than something essential.

If Concord were a Titanfall 2 level shooter, you could just about convince people to spend their money and play this new IP. It would still be a struggle, and a large portion of the gaming community has fallen into the expectation of simply not spending money on games like this, but it would have a chance. Concord is good, but never amazing.

“If Concord was a shooter on the level of Titanfall 2, you could just convince people to spend their money and try their luck with this new IP.”

Its approach and focus on narrative is a welcome change in the genre, even if the game itself doesn’t seem particularly confident about getting you to explore these things, and while the lack of a paid season pass – although a cosmetics shop is set to open at some point – is great, we think the game would have done far better than if it had launched for free or as part of PlayStation Plus and adopted that model.

Whether you think that’s a horrifying indictment of the state of the genre or not, it’s the absolute reality. While it’s admirable to say “you pay for it once” or even a developer saying they think their game is good enough that people should pay to get in, it’s an unwinnable battle while Fortnite, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, and others offer better games with more content for free.