Concord is Doing Worse Than One of Xbox's Biggest Flops

As a seasoned gamer with over two decades under my belt, I’ve seen my fair share of triumphs and disasters in the gaming world. The latest addition to the latter category is “Concord,” a game that had potential but seems to be struggling more than a newbie trying to beat Dark Souls on their first try.

The exclusive game on PlayStation 5, titled “Concord“, has faced a rough start compared to last year’s Xbox console exclusive flop, “Redfall“. Launched recently, “Concord” is a live-service hero shooter that has been criticized since its announcement. With the hero shooter genre becoming saturated, many players have expressed their displeasure at Sony for releasing this instead of another acclaimed single-player game they are known for. Additionally, “Concord‘s” less appealing character designs and $40 price tag have contributed to its underperformance.

It’s unfortunate that Concord, developed by Firewalk Studios and published by Sony, is facing significant challenges on Steam. At its peak, Concord had only 697 players, with just 97 currently playing on PC at this moment. These figures are incredibly low for a newly released game and suggest a difficult future for Concord, although there’s always the possibility that the game could somehow recover.

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It remains to be seen if Concord can recover from its hardships and attract an audience, but for comparison, it’s currently underperforming even compared to Redfall. Redfall, a highly anticipated co-op vampire FPS initially slated for a 2023 release on Xbox consoles, was met with unfavorable reviews from critics and failed to generate much interest. Interestingly, more people played Redfall when it launched than have played Concord. The peak number of players on Steam for Redfall reached 6,124, with 20 still playing the game on PC at the moment. This is significant because Redfall was a day one Xbox Game Pass title, suggesting that at least 6,124 people bought it to play on Steam.

Concord Steam Player Count vs. Redfall Steam Player Count

Although we don’t know how many players are using PS5 for the game “Concord,” it has been challenging to join non-Team Deathmatch/Kill Confirmed playlists, which is unusual given that the game just came out. Unless “Concord” on PS5 has a much larger player base than “Redfall,” it seems that Sony’s new exclusive hero shooter for the PS5, “Redfall,” is performing better. The developers of “Concord” have plans to add seasonal content updates with new characters, but it remains to be seen if they will follow through. Meanwhile, “Redfall” did receive some post-launch updates, but its larger plans were eventually canceled and sadly, the developer Arkane Austin was closed by Microsoft.

Speaking from personal experience, I’m quite fond of the core gameplay in Concord and I fervently hope it manages to steer clear of the same misfortune as Redfall. Although Redfall initially outmatched Concord in terms of player numbers at launch, the latter has been more warmly received by those who’ve delved into its world.

Concord Reviews vs. Redfall Reviews

According to OpenCritic, the game Concord currently holds a 65 average score with 21% of critics recommending it, while Redfall has a 57 rating and 14% of critics giving it a thumbs up. It’s important to note that Concord has only garnered 30 critic reviews compared to Redfall’s 138, which means the final score for Concord might shift. Critics generally agree that Concord is well-crafted in terms of its technical aspects and FPS gameplay, but it falls short on content, player engagement, and character design. On the other hand, Redfall received harsh criticism at launch for being technically flawed.

The reviews for Redfall on Steam show a mix of opinions, and its overall rating is mostly negative. On the other hand, Concord launched with positive reviews on Steam, which later became mostly positive as more reviews came in. However, it seems that Concord’s decreasing player count might be affecting its Steam scores lately. The Metacritic user score for Redfall is 3.5, while Concord has a surprisingly low 2.0, but this could be due to some users giving it bad ratings not because of the gameplay itself, but their political views about the game.

Will Concord Bounce Back?

Over the years, numerous video games have made successful comebacks after initially disappointing fans. For instance, No Man’s Sky was met with outrage when it was first released due to unfulfilled promises, but it has since grown into one of the most popular survival games. Similarly, Cyberpunk 2077 faced issues at launch for console players, but is now widely regarded as one of the best action-RPGs ever made. It remains uncertain if Concord, a multiplayer-only live-service shooter game, will follow suit and rebound from its current state. The challenge lies in the fact that if the player base drops right away, it becomes difficult to keep investing resources into updates for any significant duration.

That doesn’t mean a potential Concord comeback is impossible, though. Concord going free-to-play could be huge for the game. It’s true that Concord‘s free beta didn’t attract many players, but still, going free-to-play would put it on an even playing ground with its competitors, which are all free. And even if Concord doesn’t go completely free-to-play, maybe it could be given away as one of the free PS Plus games one month as a way to boost its player count. New characters with more appealing designs could also go a long way in making Concord more interesting to the masses. Time will tell, but it’s clear that if Sony doesn’t do something about the game’s low and dwindling player count, Concord is going to go down as one of the company’s biggest failures.

2024-08-29 19:40

Concord is Doing Worse Than One of Xbox’s Biggest Flops