This weekend has been confusing for me because of Concord’s Beta Early Access. I was very excited to play another hero shooter with a chance of it being the next Overwatch but I am not too sure what to make of Concord in its current state during the Beta.
One thing I can say is the game and its characters look good. Their facial animations all look almost life-like with Unreal Engine 5. Some of the character designs are questionable like Teo who looks like a rugby player with a gun and 1-Off who looks like a headless Michelin Man but they are designed to be easily distinguishable from each other during combat.
Entering a match, I felt the pace of the game was very slow. You will spend about 5-10 seconds running around at the start of the game finding your opponents. Most tank role characters also have one of the slowest movement speed in the game which I feel is counterintuitive in game design since a tank wants to be in front but usually a team wants to rush to the point and the tanks get left behind at the back. Most of the time when arrive I arrive at the point where most of my team is already dead so I have no one to ‘TANK’ for.
Abilities are fine with some generic ones like creating a wall, tossing a smoke grenade and a jetpack but some felt good to use like the character IT-Z who can throw a ball which has quite excellent projectile physics itself and teleport to it either to get behind enemies or to run away. Mind you that, unlike Overwatch or XDefiant, the game does not have an Ultimate which means there is no big turnaround by using an Ultimate in this game.
The Beta Early Access give us two types of game types which are Brawl and Rivalry. Brawl is more straightforward with unlimited respawns with Takedown game mode, which is TDM and Trophy Hunt game mode, which is Kill Confirm. Rivalry is a single life per round with Cargo Run which feels like capture the flag and Clash Point which is domination game mode. If you win with a character in that round, you are not allowed to use that character for the rest of the rounds, some sort like League of Legends Fearless Draft. I understand that the game is trying to create more character variety in gameplay and provide the losing team a sort of handicap, but it does feel sad at times because a round can sometimes be less than a minute and before you get the momentum for that character, you are locked out of it already.
The worst thing about the game I think is how the map feels. Encounter areas are so random and because of how open maps are, fights can happen anywhere which I feel is a little inappropriate for a team base game. In Overwatch, maps have phases and a track in which high traffic for fights happens and some side lanes for those people who like to sneak around. In Concord, you will encounter problems with the only two objective base game modes Cargo Run and Clash Point. Cargo Run needs the team to rush to get the Blue Buddy cargo which as previously said, will leave the tank character being left behind and team members running around randomly. Same with Clash Point where you want to capture the point but you have to wait for your tank to arrive.
One thing weird I found out was when I played Rivalry, most matches ended before the objective was completed which made objectives feel like a hassle to complete. A big issue is regarding leavers in a team. I notice that when a player leaves, their spot is rarely filled back. This can create a situation where there are 3 versus 5 or even 1 versus 5 after 2 or 3 rounds. There is no penalty for leaving as far as I know at the time of writing this article.
Not all is bad in the game because there are a few mechanics like Crew Builder which allows you to build your crew which will give you crew buffs depending on what characters you select to be in your crew. The time to kill in the game is also quite slow so you will have more chance to survive an encounter and heal before re-entering combat. There are also character variants which you can unlock which give characters a different passive so there might be more character variety.
Overall Concord gives an excellent-looking hero shooter but there are still a lot of things to be figured out before it should be released. The game nails how each character class need to rely on each other, but it is hard to make random players group up and fight as a team seeing as the map feels too open. Maybe 1 out of 10 games only I see my teammates really play as a team and stick together while most games are skirmishes around the map. The quality of your gaming experience will increase if you play with your friends especially if you can get a full team, but a game should cater for the solo player experience also.
I will continue playing the Concord Open Beta this weekend (starting 19 July at 4 am (GMT+8)) so hopefully with a new map and game mode the gaming experience is much better.
