When Concord kicked off Sony’s last State of Play recently, reception from the team on DF Direct Weekly was hardly positive. The presentation opened with a pre-rendered CG video with a level of graphical quality that far exceeded what was realistically possible from the final game, while Concord’s actual gameplay reveal also struggled to escape comparison with Overwatch. That said, we did want to get to grips with the game and a recent beta has given us the chance to do exactly that: to sample both PlayStation 5 and PC versions ourselves – and it’s fair to say we’re more upbeat on its prospects now. There’s no doubt this is a well-made game, but is it a must-play? We’re still not sure.
In the video embedded below, you’ll see that both John Linneman and Tom Morgan put in a good number of hours with the game on PS5, and across two PC setups. This is a current-gen exclusive, and with that in mind it opens up opportunities for developer Firewalk Studios to truly push the visual bar. Also to its credit, the game is based on Unreal Engine 5, but in order to maintain both image quality and a good grip on 60fps performance, it appears the engine’most cutting edge technologies are not deployed this time.
Micro-geometry with Nanite definitely isn’t used, while the real-time global illumination offered by Lumen is also absent. In fairness, with this style of game, high-end tech is hardly essential and Concord’s approach to ‘baked’ (ie pre-calculated) indirect lighting and shadows still impress. Visually, there’s strong art direction here: Concord looks good, it has character, and does go some way towards delivering the kind of Guardians of the Galaxy meets next-gen Overwatch developer Firewalk Studios is aiming for.
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