Concord Review In Progress - Beta Impressions

ign.com:

Grab a copy of Overwatch off some dusty GameStop shelf and rub it under the musky armpit of the Guardians of the Galaxy’s Peter Quill and you might have something close to the feeling of Concord. As competitive hero shooters go, this sci-fi contender from Sony plays it quite safe, complete with immediately charming characters immaculately rendered in gobsmackingly beautiful cutscenes and ability-based PvP combat that never addresses why those characters are fighting one another when they’re clearly allies in said cutscenes. But just because it doesn’t offer much in the way of innovation doesn’t mean Concord isn’t extremely fun to play. I still have lots more to see when it launches properly next month, but with 16 characters and four familiar game modes available in its preorder beta this past weekend, the vast majority of the 10+ hours I’ve spent with it so far have been a sweaty, gun-toting good time.

You and your squad will form a five-person team of super-powered characters, each with their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities, and then bring them to bear against an opposing team in a variety of formulaic game modes. Those include a standard deathmatch mode, a “Kill Confirmed” mode called Trophy Hunt, an attack-and-defend mode called Cargo Run, and a zone control mode called Clash Point – none of which possess even the slightest hint of novelty. But being overly familiar isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’ve got best-in-class gunplay and awesome characters with compelling powers to back it up, and boy, Concord has got both of those down pat.

Concord sagely keeps its weapon selection very slim, with just two options given to each character by default and no way to customize that – but the upshot there is that every single weapon feels incredibly responsive and finely tuned, and no two characters have weapons that feel at all similar. The arena-controlling old lady, Duchess, wields a submachine gun that’s devastating at close range, while the