The developer of Concord, Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 5 and PC hero shooter, has discussed how it will handle the game’s monetisation – and why the game requires a PSN account log-in on PC.
Speaking to Eurogamer’s Chris Tapsell earlier this month, Concord developer Firewalk explained the game’s relatively cheap £35/$40 price point, and said it was a fair proposition for the amount of content the title contained.
“When you buy the game, you get… the 16 characters, 12 maps, six modes,” Firewalk’s director of IP Kim Kreines said. “Every season, all that seasonal content, that’s all free.
“There’s additional cosmetic-only customisation options where you can further personalise your characters’ looks – this isn’t gameplay, this is only cosmetic – that you can purchase, and that will come out seasonally as well.”
Seasonal content will remain free for the time being, with added characters, maps, modes and worlds, and weekly cinematic shorts expanding the game’s lore.
Concord was fully detailed at Sony’s State of Play last month, where its five-versus-five PVP gameplay was first glimpsed. A hero shooter like Overwatch, it has a narrative style and colourful cast of characters that seems influenced by James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
A cross-platform game for both PC and PS5, Concord will once again feature a PSN account requirement on both platforms. This has been a point of contention for past PlayStation-published releases, most notably Helldivers. Ghost of Tsushima, meanwhile, will let you play without a PSN account as long as you’re offline. So what were the reasons behind it being necessary again here?
“That allows us to have cross play, that cross progression, that’s that’s an important piece of it,” Kreines said when asked.
“The goal is for players to come together,” lead character designer Jon Weisnewski added. “And so for us to have PC players and PlayStation 5 players together, for that cross-play and cross-progression to work, that’s a layer that needs to be there – just on a technical level. So the goal is we want to get players together, to have fun and play together, this is part of that experience.”
“Concord feels like a load of brilliant games combined – but is that enough?” our Chris Tapsell wrote after going hands-on with the game. “My fingers are crossed for this one being given enough time to find its identity on the fly.”