There’s no shortage of hero shooters in the world, but if you’re looking for a new one, now’s your chance to try the latest on PlayStation 5. After a gameplay debut at a recent State of Play showcase, Sony is offering is offering Concord beta access to all PS Plus subscribers and pre-order holders starting today before its open beta becomes available to everyone next weekend. It’s a high-stakes moment for the upcoming shooter, which could either redeem its reputation with a skeptical audience or dig its own grave over the next few days.
This weekend’s early access beta runs from July 12 to July 14, starting and ending at 1 p.m. Eastern. The expanded beta next weekend gives you an extra day to play, starting on July 18 and ending July 21. PlayStation Plus subscribers can access this weekend’s beta by downloading Concord through PSN, and anyone who’s pre-ordered the game will receive a code to unlock it, plus four more to bring friends along. Both beta periods are also open to PC players with crossplay between the two platforms.
Beta participants will be able to play three different game modes. In Trophy Hunt, defeating another player will drop a trophy that you must collect to earn points for your team. Clash Point is essentially King of the Hill, with teams fighting to control a special zone on the map to win. Cargo Run has both teams fighting to claim cargo for themselves or prevent the enemy from doing the same. Next week’s open beta will add Area Control, which is similar to Clash Point but with multiple zones to fight over.
This weekend’s beta features three of Concord’s maps, with another joining next week. Both beta periods will include access to all 16 of the game’s characters, known as Freegunners in Concord’s parlance. Progress from this weekend’s early access beta will carry over into the open beta next week, but nothing will carry over to the game’s full release.
Concord’s State of Play reveal initially left viewers underwhelmed, to put it mildly. By the day after its launch, its gameplay trailer gained 16,000 dislikes on YouTube, and only 3,000 likes. Critics made comparisons to both Overwatch and Guardians of the Galaxy, neither of which were favorable. The game comes at what feels like the tail end of a fading live-service trend, which has seen even giant names in the space struggle or fail entirely, while countless smaller projects never got off the ground to begin with. Given that Concord’s gameplay doesn’t seem that different from any other hero shooter on the market, many questioned what it even has to offer.
It hasn’t all been grim tidings for Concord, though. Despite the initial response being nothing short of total rejection, people who’ve actually gotten their hands on the game have been a bit more positive. GameSpot praised Concord for encouraging players to work as a team and allowing each Freegunner to play a flexible role in combat while still sticking to defined classes. And though its gameplay trailer didn’t show much you can’t see in plenty of other hero shooters, Concord’s distinct and customizable abilities reportedly give it a lot more personality than anyone initially expected.
Still, Concord has its work cut out for it. It’s not only entering the crowded space of competitive first-person shooters, but also jumping onto what feels like a trend on its way out. Hero shooters were once a hot commodity, but whether through oversaturation or just changing tastes, that’s no longer the case. These days, it seems impossible to predict which multiplayer titles are going to hit it big, with games like the co-op shooter Helldivers 2 reaching a level of success that absolutely no one saw coming.
We’re still over a month out from Concord’s August 23 launch, but this feels like a make-or-break weekend for the shooter. Trailers and previews can give players some idea of what to expect from a game, but with early opinions so divided, a lot more players need to go hands-on to judge whether it will have enough players to keep its community alive.
