Meme

The most infuriating aspect of Concord


Many people who have played the game agree that the game is "solid, competent" but "bland, derivative, generic, etc." as well. But I would argue that the debut trailer is the worst thing about it.

Sony beat everyone else to the internet with their State of Play to kick off the Summer games announcements. And to kick off that State of Play? A long, drawn out trailer for Concord.

Initially, I thought it looked cool. Futuristic setting, quirky characters, maybe we're putting together a team and trotting across the galaxy on a memorable adventure? Maybe some GOTG mixed in with some Mass Effect? Those were the vibes I was getting.

Of course we got confirmation by the devs immediately after that the game was instead a 5v5 hero shooter. And all I could think of is:

"Can I please have the last 5 minutes of my life back? K thx"

This trailer failed for two reasons (in my opinion).

  1. Expectations. This one's the most obvious one. I think the vast majority of us agree: this trailer alluded to something other than what it is. I saw a trailer with a few misfits having some character moments, some banter about a "plan", an altercation and a "tug o war" with some macguffin. Not exactly setting the stage for a hero shooter if you ask me.

  2. Cost. How much do you think they wasted on this trailer? Likely millions. It's a high value production that must have required alot of time and money to produce. Those resources could have been used on the game itself. I don't know what aspect of the game could have used the resources mind you, since the game is fundamentally a copy paste of other franchises. But more development resources could have went into separating the game from the rest of the crowd. It would have been wiser to show off a much shorter, in-game trailer showcasing a match instead of what we got.

I don't know about you, but I think the trailer exemplifies what's wrong with alot of these showcases. Big, bombastic cinematics for games that are nothing like the trailers. I've seen enough of this shit over the last 10 years, and it's kind of hard to be enthusiastic for these big gaming events because of it. I don't go into Nintendo Directs with the same apathy, because what you see is what you get with those guys. I wish the rest of the industry would read the room and take notes.

12 Comments

  1. BitingArtist

    The goal was to trick people. You see, this game exists to sell store content at a later date. But first they tried hyping up the market with an expensive trailer.

  2. Recently only live game that delivered what It promised in trailer is “The Finals”. My Favorite game of 2024. I cant believe its Free to Play.

  3. collieoats

    Reminds me of deathloop. Game was overhyped as hell and was mediocre at best.

  4. Calm-Traffic-8301

    The most infuriating aspect in my mind is that this game exists.

  5. Kitakitakita

    the thing i hate the most is that we were just supposed to all hop on Concord because Sony told us to. “Ok I guess this is the next big thing”

  6. Real-Variation-8681

    The entire vibe of the trailer was basically the embodiment of the: “Ummm they’re standing right behind me aren’t they?”, “awkwaaaard….” “Welp, that just happened!!” Writing style a lot of TV shows and games do nowadays. I’ve seen it referred to as “millennial writing”. It’s the type of shit you see in modern MCU stuff, where every character is talking in “quirky self aware” quips 24/7.

    And on top of that, that shit went on far, far too long. To the point people almost the entire live chat was begging for it to end. Then when it did, they revealed it’s just a hero shooter and the 10 people in chat who were still being positive were like “bruh really?” Because like you said, they were expecting at least an open world singleplayer or something along those lines. But nope.

    And on top of *that*, the game just looks…. Bad. There’s no cohesive theme or aesthetic, the character designs are either bland or straight up repulsive design wise, gameplay looks like every other fps, the writing as mentioned above is cringe, and people were already coming in with soured expectations after that lengthy let down of a trailer.

    The entire game sunk like the Titanic it’s actually crazy to see.

  7. goliathfasa

    Because without the trailer, it’s another pvp only hero shooter with no draw to put it above any competitor.

    OW was successful because 1) it was Blizzard, 2) it enter the genre before saturation and 3) it had memorable characters.

    Concord can’t do 1 or 2, so they tried for 3.

    There was a world where they actually successfully got people interested in these characters and this world, so much so that they’ll be willing to play yet another hero shooter. We do not live in that world.

  8. dogeblessUSA

    its amazing for how few people play this game a ton of people love to talk about it

  9. QouthTheCorvus

    I think they probably want it to have engaged fanbases in the way League has and Overwatch did – people actually cared about the characters. Liking characters means people are more likely to buy skins.

    And if it’s *really* successful, you get a potential multimedia franchise that has a tie in show and everything.

  10. I feel like they would of been better off making an animated series rather than a game

  11. I enjoyed the trailer until right when the developers showed their face and said 5v5 shooter, then I just skipped ahead to the next showcase, this was the summer games showcase I think, not sure.

    If the game was a single player guardians of the galaxy lookalike with the cast introduced in the trailer, I’m personally down with it to go adventuring with the bunch across the galaxies.

    but nah, it’s 5v5 shooter…

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