Concord is Coming for Overwatch’s Hero Shooter Crown

Gaming

May 31, 2024

Grant Taylor-Hill

PlayStation and Firewalk Studios recently combined forces to reveal Concord, an all-new first-person shooter with hero-based mechanics. It’s poised to be an ability-driven, five-vs-five shooter with an unfolding narrative that matures as the game ages. Firewalk has been cooking Concord behind the scenes for years, working in collaboration with Bungie, and now the team has finally revealed what the game will look like when it’s released globally in August 2024.

Mostly, the reveal trailer turned heads based on the first few minutes of footage, which were comprised solely of entertaining CGI-based content. It showcased something akin to Guardians of the Galaxy, highlighting humourous characters and a lighter-than-life take on an intense sci-fi shoot-out. When the gameplay portion of the trailer came around, Concord was further revealed to be a twisted mix-up between VALORANT and Overwatch, and gamers worldwide became instantly divided on their opinions.

Concord is Coming Soon

Concord’s first substantial trailer unfolded at the latest State of Play showcase, presenting viewers with five minutes of action accompanied by a developer-driven breakdown. Here’s the trailer for your perusal:

If we overlook the Guardians of the Galaxy vibes – right down to the Starlord-level quips – we can see that Concord boasts a relatively solid shooter concept on the topmost level. It’s being touted as an Overwatch clone, which may or may not be a good thing at this stage, but are gamers as a collective getting tired of the hero shooter aesthetic?

In the gameplay reveal, we saw something that could have been ripped straight out of Blizzard’s shooter. On a series of maps, hero-based characters flew around using various abilities and weapons to dominate the playing field in a range of modes that aren’t too dissimilar to those found in Overwatch. The art style is slightly reminiscent of VALORANT, too. When the CGI portion of the trailer unravelled, fans were excited by the prospect of an open-world adventure game featuring these comical characters, but that wasn’t to be.

Firewalk Studios did confirm something unique about Concord, though. Every week, a new episode will drop that explores the backstory and lore of the many characters in Concord, applying a narrative layer that fleshes out the game’s universe. It’s not the first time a developer has tried to do something like that, but it has been quite a while since the concept last surfaced in the gaming world – and it hasn’t ever really been done successfully.

Concord should be a decent enough shooter, if nothing else. It’s set to be released on August 23, but in July, a beta phase will open up.

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