Concord is PlayStation’s answer to Overwatch and it isn’t going down well

Developed by Firewalk Studios, which was founded by former Bungie CEO Harold Ryan, Concord is a first-person 5v5 hero shooter which appears to be aiming for a tone similar to James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy movies.

In Concord, you play as a group of guns-for-hire called the Northstar crew, who take on other ‘Freegunner’ squads across the galaxy in competitive matches.

A handful of the 16 playable characters planned for launch are shown in the reveal trailer, which all have unique abilities. There’s Vale, a sniper whizz who can plant wall traps, Lennox who has a revolver he can throw at enemies, and the crossbow-wielding Haymar who also has fire magic.

Other characters shown include Star Child, who appears to be inspired by Drax the Destroyer in terms of design and personality, and tank robot 1-OFF who has various wind-orientated traps and weapons.

While it does look derivative in its aesthetics, the gameplay itself does look pretty slick and polished – but it remains to be seen whether there’s an audience for another Overwatch rival, especially with Marvel Rivals also on the horizon.

There’s already been a wave of negative blowback too against the first trailer, which currently has 13,000 dislikes versus 2,800 likes on YouTube. In comparison, at the time of writing (May 31), Astro Bot has 24,000 likes against 284 dislikes.

Many of the complaints against Concord have called it ‘generic’ and simply ‘another hero shooter’ – so the developers might have a hill to climb in swaying online opinion.

Concord will come with six different 5v5 PvP modes at launch, while new characters, modes and maps are promised in post-launch updates.

It won’t be long until you can try it out yourself, as Concord is set to launch on August 23 across PS5 and PC. Those who pre-order from June 6 will be able to access a planned beta, which is set to take place in July.