Hero shooters have been a massive hit over the past decade or so. Concord, by Firewalk Studios, published by Sony PlayStation, presents your typical hero shooter, but in space. After a long journey, the sci-fi-inspired 5v5 hero shooter has finally landed on PC and PlayStation 5. I joined the crew on PC, and while I sometimes enjoyed the casual gunplay, it didn’t soar to new heights for me compared to past competitive team-based shooters.

Concord centres around the Freegunner crew of the Northstar – a group of outlaws travelling the galaxy looking to make a quick buck. During the opening cutscene, it quickly becomes clear where Firewalk and Sony have taken much of their inspiration from – a specific 80s-inspired sci-fi superhero movie about a bunch of misfits seeking glory while saving the galaxy, almost as if they want to be its guardians.

The opening cutscene is beautifully animated, with quite a few of the main crew making their first appearance, and the vibrant, 80s-esque sci-fi aesthetic looks excellent. I’m keen to see if Concord brings in more lore and visually gorgeous cutscenes in the future. The voice acting and sci-fi, hero-like orchestral soundtrack sound great, and the Firewalk Studios squad have nailed each hero’s quirky vibes, so I’m keen to see how the story evolves as their universe expands further.

As a sci-fi game, I expect plenty of crewmates to be unique and take on various forms, like humans, aliens, and humanoid aliens, and here, Concord had me covered. On release, there are 16 playable characters, each with their own unique skills. I played during “Week 1, Season 0 Freegunners”, testing out all 16 characters during my time, and quite a few felt noticeably weaker than the others.

For example, the super-spy, a dapperly dressed android named Kyps, is a tactician whose stealth and enemy-detection abilities are great for a team, but she lacks offensive power. Others, like Roka, have a powerful AOE Blast dive and rocket launcher to decimate enemies. Tao utilises two interchangeable guns, smoke grenades and cluster grenades to swiftly gain the advantage.

There were characters I enjoyed significantly more; Haymar uses a crossbow and wall of fire ability to quickly burn through health, while others have a strong focus on defence and almost no offensive power. A cool addition is the Crew Builder, unlocked through progression, allowing for crew load-outs to optimise team composition. Variants provide different versions of Freegunners with differing combat traits, mixing up how their weapons and skills work.

Crew bonuses add even more buffs into the mix, where each character type provides different benefits; the Anchor class provides increased healing, while the Tactician increases reload speed. Potentially, with a team of 5, you can cover almost every base of crew bonus thanks to the 6 different playable class types.

Freegunners travel through the galaxy, completing various objectives or game modes with us, the players, experiencing them. Playing in 5v5 teams, with cross-play and cross-progression(!), there are 6 game modes available, including a standard competitive elimination round called Brawl, a capture-and-defend mode in Overrun, protecting cargo in Cargo Run, and Clash Point, where teams must fight for control of a zone on the map. Additional modes, like Time Trial and the Practice Range, let me hone my skills before getting out into the field.

While there’s a reasonable amount of content from day one, I didn’t find much replay value. Like any hero shooter, teamwork makes the dream work, and in Concord, the ultimate key to victory is a good team; without it, it’s easy to get slaughtered in a match.

In my first match, my team was spread out, and we were picked off one by one by a more coordinated team, leaving players in an exciting predicament – do they want to continue to match with the same people?

Matchmaking with the same squad happened during my evenings in various lovely spaceports and cities throughout the galaxy, and the time it took varied depending on the game mode. The straight-up Brawl mode usually took a maximum of a minute to find a game, while in Overrun mode, on my first attempt, I had to wait 8 minutes to find a squad.

During the wait for a match, there’s no way to browse menus, nor is there a practice range to play in, which I could’ve used while trying to master each Freegunner’s skills.

The customisation options for Freegunners are off to a good start, and you can make each hero your own with outfits, weapon skins, victory poses, and trinkets. So far, most of these outfits are colourways, but given how cool some of the characters look, I’m keen to see if they get a bit more creative in their fits.

As a live-service game, I’m hoping Firewalk Studios provides ongoing support. Progression occurs through playing matches; each individual character can be levelled up to unlock their cosmetic gear and Variants. There’s a decent rotation of game modes to play, with ample ways to gain experience and level up through the Job Board, which provides daily, weekly, and seasonal tasks, and most objectives are pretty obtainable.

I found that by just going through the motions of playing, I met most goals, like eliminating a number of enemies through the use of skills or killing a certain amount of players consecutively. While it’s shaping up to provide a good amount of content and moving away from the seasonal journey-type battlepass that’s been adapted into live-service games, I hope they find ways to amp it up a few notches.

It could have been smoother travel on the graphics front. While the sci-fi cityscapes and games maps look great, of which there’s a whole 12 to visit, Concord sometimes could have run better. I had some framerate drops at max settings with no framerate cap, dipping low enough to get me gunned down by the enemy squad. My system is pretty hefty and can handle much more graphic-intensive titles, so I was surprised that my system didn’t agree.

Capping my system at 60fps with high settings worked well enough, but it was disappointing to have to do so. Controls are standard fare for FPS games, so there was no issue adjusting to that, and it felt great to play on both mouse and keyboard and the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller, both of which allow for customisable key mapping for picky shooters.

Concord can potentially be more significant in the hero shooter genre, but in a highly competitive market, it could have hit better. The game’s visuals, audio, and lore show promise, but the gameplay can sometimes feel forced, and the balance issues and matchmaking delays could be more manageable.

As a live-service game, Concord will continue to evolve with their plans to introduce new free-gunners, maps, modes and quality-of-life changes during seasonal updates. While my interplanetary journey may have been less exciting, I’m still hopeful that, in time, Concord will be able to boldly go where no hero shooter has gone before.

Written by: Yasmin Noble