Concord Died Before It Lived, But It Didn’t Have To

On August 23rd, 2024 CGM published my review of Concord . I said that despite being a somewhat mediocre multiplayer FPS, it was inevitably doomed to be “ yet another hero shooter that people forget about in a month.” In truth, I was being extremely charitable, because on September 3rd, 2024, a little more than a week after its launch, Firewalk Studios announced they would be shutting the game down effective Sep 6th, 2024 to “explore options.”

This sat with me in a weird way because, despite my prediction, I never want to see a game fail—especially after a team supposedly spent eight years of their lives working on it. But even after my review of Concord , I could see the writing on the wall specifically because of how it was designed, and I couldn’t help but think to myself, “It didn’t have to be like this.”

Now I want to preface this the same way I did in my editorial: A Critic’s Guide to Game Design By Inspiration . I don’t claim to be a game designer, nor do I claim to know how much work goes into making a game. However, as someone who has been a critic for over ten years, with more than 235 games reviewed, I have a pretty solid understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

Concord had a few good ideas, but good ideas alone does not a good game make. Like I said in my review, the foundation was there, but nothing of substance was built upon it. Now if I wanted to be profoundly cynical I might speculate that if the game’s development did begin eight years ago, that would put it in the same year that Overwatch was released which is a hell of a coincidence.

That last part was meant as a joke, but it’s not an entirely crazy idea that a game as successful and well-put-together as Overwatch would inspire other studios to have a crack at the genre. And like I said in my aforementioned Design by Inspiration article, there’s nothing wrong with making a game that was inspired by another. What astounds me somewhat is, throughout that eight-year development cycle, after seeing so many failed attempts to enter the hero shooter genre—from games that, mind you, were actually quite good—no one thought to shift development in a different direction.

This brings us to the thesis of this piece—I honestly believe Concord could have succeeded as a different game. Concord was a game that, in theory, was full of creative potential. Quite clearly inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy , the game was going for a wild-west but in-space vibe with a colourful cast of characters, all of whom were some form of chaotic-good or chaotic-neutral. There’s a lot you can do with that concept, but not without depth in both the story and the characters.

“Almost everything Concord did wrong was in service to its live service. “

Even Guardians of the Galaxy understands this. The idea of a bipedal raccoon with a machine gun is a pretty funny gag for about five seconds, but what makes Rocket interesting is he is a deeply complex character punctuated by his being a victim of abuse and his struggles to form meaningful relationships for fear of being hurt again.

Concord has 16 characters, and the most I can say about any of their depictions is…I think Lennox likes hot sauce ? Nowhere in the game or any surrounding materials do they attempt to flesh out these characters in any meaningful way. Say what you want about Overwatch , but it actually attempted to create stories for its characters both in its animated shorts and in the way each character has distinctive playstyles and animations.

It really seemed to me like Concord wanted to have a world and history that was galactic in scale, but the only way you’re going to build that is with a focused, narratively driven game. Remember, this game was going to have little story vignettes supposedly every week, and the game itself didn’t make it past week ONE.

Almost everything Concord did wrong was in service to its live service . Its story was non-existent because it was supposed to occur weekly, and its characters were bland both conceptually and mechanically because it was meant to feel “balanced,” and players were meant to unlock upgrades through repeat play.

And it was during my apathetic playtime of Concord for review that it dawned on me what kind of game it should have been like— Timesplitters 2 . For those who didn’t grow up with it, Timesplitters 2 focused on the main character, Sergeant Cortez, as he fought through time to prevent it from collapsing. Every level takes place in a different time period, with different characters—each who has mildly different stats—and every level features different weapons and mission objectives.

“Concord had a few good ideas, but good ideas alone does not a good game make.”

It was insanely fun to play and incredibly compelling because every level was essentially a mini-story that added a bit of flavour to the main story. Every level introduces its mechanics slowly, so there’s no steep learning curve, and it was always fun and interesting to see where you’d end up and what you were working with. Concord could have been EXACTLY this. A narratively driven game where every level tells a bit of one character’s story in a way that informs the main story.

Each character could have been built in a way that actually made them feel distinct—with unique advantages and disadvantages—and their levels could have been built around their unique style. Furthermore, this would have prompted the developers to design characters a bit more horizontally rather than thinking strictly vertically—which may have resolved a lot of the problems that came from their attempts to “balance” the game.

Maybe players could have unlocked different versions of each Freegunner’s abilities—each with upsides and downsides that made them feel more fleshed out and interesting and created unique risk vs. reward situations. Then, if you wanted to have a competitive online mode, the base game could have taught players how each character worked, and then they could choose who they liked in the multiplayer.

This would’ve created a game that supported itself. Players who wanted a solo experience would’ve gotten an interesting game with a good story and a wild cast of characters, who may be tempted to go online if they wanted to keep playing, while players who wanted a multiplayer experience would be drawn to the solo game to learn how each character works.

“ Killer Klowns from Outer Space wasn’t a great movie, but it could have been an incredible Supermassive game.”

And it’s not just me saying this would have been a better model of game design, we have tangible proof that focused, narratively driven games do better than live services. Staying on the Marvel theme, as of 2024 Marvel’s Spider-Man has sold over 50 million copies compared to Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers is said to have sold 3 million copies and supposedly was a $65 million dollar loss for Square.

And it’s not just Concord . Recently, I reviewed The Casting of Frank Stone , which, despite being set in the Dead By Daylight universe, was a fairly straightforward narrative horror game—due in large part to its development by Supermassive Games. Despite being based on the game that essentially started the trend of horror IPs turning into asymmetric multiplayer games, it managed to defy convention and create something interesting and the whole time, I thought, “Why couldn’t Killer Clowns From Outer Space have been this!?”

Supermassive Games made a name for itself with Until Dawn —a narrative “choose your own adventure” style game that was a loving tribute to shlocky 80s horror movies. Killer Klowns from Outer Space wasn’t a great movie, but it could have been an incredible Supermassive game. It could have had tense moments where you had to make split-second decisions to escape the Klowns, and failure could’ve led to some new and interesting Klown kills—and maybe a few callbacks to the movie.

Imagine if they used unique gameplay and interesting storytelling to do what the movie couldn’t and make a game that was actually scary. Horror, in particular, is one of the best genres to adapt to a game specifically because of player involvement. Killer Klowns from Outer Space could have been one of the best games based on a B-movie in history, and, instead, it was another forgettable asymmetric multiplayer game that currently has the same amount of players as Concord —on Steam anyway.

My point is here: when you take a safe bet on something because it was successful once, you fail to understand why it was successful in the first place. Something is only new once, and if you’re going to try to enter the market with your version of Overwatch or Splatoon or Dead By Daylight then it better completely change the game. Don’t let your game become the living embodiment of the “we have [thing] at home” meme because you ended up—however wantingly—imitating rather than innovating.