The May 2024 PlayStation State of Play felt a little more muted than many were expecting. With Summer Games Fest around the corner, there were hopes Sony might bring the fire of E3 shows of old.
This is especially true because PlayStation’s current slate of games feels like they’re missing something big, exciting, and blockbuster-y. Many were hoping we might see what’s next from Naughty Dog, New Spider-Man DLC, Ghosts of Tsushima 2, or Marathon.
Instead, it was a lower-key affair, with the biggest Sony first-party game being Concord, outside of Astro Bot. The debut game from Firewalk Studios is a hero-based 5 v 5 arena shooter that will be looking to muscle into an already crowded space.
I’m not sure what is happening now, but it feels like we’re in a bit of a surge period for hero shooters. Concord, Star Wars Hunters, and Marvel Rivals (which also appeared at the showcase) are all making plays to make their name.
Of course, it’s Overwatch’s shadow that looms long over the genre, and it’s not taken long for Blizzard’s game to be thrown around in comparison to Concord. On the surface, it makes sense – it’s a character-based shooter where everyone has their own abilities mixed with fast multiplayer action.
That said, while there are definitely bigger characters, and there are instances of healing, the game doesn’t seem to be about having a couple of supports, damage players, and a tank. Instead, it seems to be far more interested in open gunplay in an arena. This doesn’t really look or feel like Overwatch at all.
No, it feels much closer to Lawbreakers.
Lawbreakers was good!
Okay, I know that sounds like it’s meant to be a burn. It’s not, but I understand why people might get that vibe. Lawbreakers was notorious for being a high-profile live service failure. The arena shooter was published by Netease and created by Cliff Bleszinski’s Boss Key Studios. It was released in August 2017, but sadly, just one year later, its servers were shut down.
The thing with Lawbreakers, though, was that it was actually a pretty great game. It was a highly mobile arena shooter, with hero abilities, but still a focus on gunplay and neutral fights. The low-gravity and objective-based play made for fast matches that were pretty exciting. It, too, somehow got the Overwatch-like moniker attached to it, but to me, that never really stuck. Lawbreakers was far more Quake than it was Blizzard’s moba-inspired shooter.
Concord looks like it could be on a similar fate. The Overwatch comparisons are already hounding the game, despite the fact that the gameplay shown looks very different. This is movement and gunplay-focused combat with abilities supplementary to you actually aiming at people.
Hell, there is even an objective with a little robot face on it in both the gameplay trailer and the cinematic trailer. This is deeply reminiscent of the Justin Roiland voiced objective that players fought over in Lawbreakers. The comparisons are quite staggering.
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At a price
As I said, I don’t mean the Lawbreakers comparison to be critical of Concord. I liked Lawbreakers quite a bit. Concord also has a huge focus on storytelling by bringing in new cutscenes every week to push forward its universe. There’s enough uniqueness here to make it stand out.
However, while my comparison is meant to invoke the positive things about Lawbreakers, there is a lingering, foreboding feeling over the game, too. The sense that Firewalk Studios might be walking directly into the same mistakes again.
This space has come to be dominated by free-to-play games. Having players able to jump in and play a popular shooter with their friends with no hassle is a strong win for games like Warzone, Fortnite, and Overwatch 2. However, from the wording in the official blog post accompanying the announcement, the game will have pre-orders, suggesting it might be a paid-for game.
Lawbreakers also decided to forgo the free-to-play route (well, except for a few months before the game shut down.) It joined the market just as free-to-play games were becoming the norm for online shooters, and the prospect of paying an entry fee for an online multiplayer game became a harder sell. It’s not the only reason, but it added to this sense that Lawbreakers was a good game that was released at the wrong time.
It’s not yet confirmed what pay model Concord has, with more info coming soon. However, if it is going to be a retail-priced game – it’s hard to see it finding a wide audience. Maybe people would find the ability to pay a one-time fee for an online multiplayer game again novel. However, it would have to be a one-time fee and not just a fee on top of a game that is also monetized aggressively.
Those that came before
Concord has had a rocky take-off; that much is clear. The PlayStation audience doesn’t seem very enamored with it, with the trailer garnering a ton of dislikes on YouTube. A wide sentiment seems to point to a general hero shooter fatigue, especially with more and more being announced.
Concord will have an uphill battle either way. While it doesn’t look very Overwatch, that comparison is likely going to stick, just as it did unfairly to Lawbreakers.
That said, it’s still early days. Lawbreakers was a fun game that was handled poorly and released at the wrong time. If Concord is a good game, is handled better, and ends up hitting at just the right time, it might have a good chance of staying around.
It’s worth keeping in mind that all of this is speculative, too. We’ve only seen snippets of gameplay, modes, and characters. Once we get hands-on in July as part of the beta, we will be able to talk much more concretely. However, in order to succeed, Concord needs to chart its own path in the stars to get to that place of viability because right now, it looks like it’s already following in the tracks of those games that came before and perished.
