(Photo of Concords reveal at yesterdays State of Play)
The internet has been deservingly rough on Concords debut. Instead of piling on, I thought it might be more interesting to envision a scenario where Concord succeeds and grab a foothold in the market. There's 3 core pillars in what makes a compelling multiplayer title...
PlayStyle asymmetry - We saw gameplay from the perspective of 5 characters. Vale (Sniper, Proxy mine), Lennox (Pistol, Axe), Haymar (Crossbow, Flashbang), Star Child (Grenade launcher, Hulk leap), and 1-Off (Vacuum gun, launch pad). I suspect what they're going with here is a MOBA like setup where each character has specific roles (warden, anchor, ranger, breacher, tactician) as well as a primary, secondary, utility, and movement abilities. From my perspective, they all played relatively similarly and the asymmetry is nothing to write home about. Here's what they have to say about on the PlayStation Blog...
"While our core gunplay will feel familiar to shooter fans, the versatility and variety of each Freegunner and their abilities makes it so aim and thumbskill alone aren’t always enough to come out on top. Each Freegunner’s abilities are designed to make it so that players of a wide range of skill levels and play styles can be effective—even those that are new to the genre—while providing additional challenge and depth for those looking for high-stakes, high-sweat competitive play."
That quote is significantly more interesting than the gameplay we saw. The trailer did not showcase anything special about playstyle asymmetry more than what's already standard in the industry. If Concord is going to launch, the other 11 characters really need to play and feel vastly different than the 5 that were showcased.
Progression - Games that make the player feel like they're progressing from hour 100 to hour 300 have a massive competitive advantage over games that start to feel repetitive at hour 30. At this point, we know nothing about Concords progression. Here's what they mention on the blog...
"The Freegunners roam the stars taking high-stakes jobs on worlds across Wild space, where they face other fiercely competitive Freegunner crews. From match-to-match, you’ll form your team of Freegunners with other players and battle it out with rival crews to take home the reward across a variety of maps and modes."
If Firewalk can legitimately create "high-stakes" jobs, meaning the player will lose a lot if they fail (think Escape from Tarkov), then they could have something interesting. If the stakes boil down to something like Overwatch, where your rank goes up or down slightly after every match, the game will wallow. It's possible that Firewalk is doing something interesting with the ships, though the fact that everyone ship is called "The Northstar" doesn't fill me with confidence.
Social Aspect - Humans are the most social animal on earth. A game that encourages social interactions has a distinct advantage over one that doesn't. The theme of Concord (Guardians of the Galaxy) certainly lends itself to players getting to know one another, and the gameplay is slow enough to encourage teamplay tactics...so they might have something here. It's possible the trailer was meant to be a Michael Bay action movie where the public is supposed to be wowed by chaos and the actual gameplay is much more teamwork oriented.
I also don't think the Sweet Baby Incification will hurt the games chances. Multiplayer gamers are better equipped to ignore that stuff if the gameplay is there. The weekly cutscenes sound lame as hell, but we'll almost certainly be able to ignore them. Still, unless I'm missing something, it seems like a crazy poor use of resources for a PvP multiplayer game. We'll be seeimg more of this at Geoff Keighlys Summer Game Fest so hopefully the debut trailer was just poorly executed.
