The news surrounding PlayStation’s latest online shooting game, Concord, hasn’t been all that great. But the developers did offer up some good news to players.
In a thread posted on X/Twitter, developers thanked those who participated in the Concord beta test and teased several bits of information about the game. This included details on game modes, progression systems, and different maps. One statement that did stand out among the others was that Concord will not feature a battle pass at launch. In the section talking about their plans for post-launch content, the developers clarified that they wanted players to focus more on playing the game and leveling up in order to make the experience better for everyone.
Hearing that a modern day video game won’t be forcing players to spend large amounts of money on battle passes just to unlock more content is refreshing, especially when other hero shooters like Apex Legends have stirred up so much controversy with the battle pass strategies that they needed to reverse.
Many of the replies to this specific tweet praised the game for not succumbing to these monetization practices, but a good number of them also just repeated how the game is already dead on arrival and this information won’t really matter if the game shuts down soon after it releases.
And that common complaint has been at the center of Concord‘s recent coverage as of late. With a lackluster number of players recorded on Steam, gamers just don’t seem all that interested in trying the hero shooter out. It also doesn’t help that reviews of the game from those who played it seem to be mixed. With a month to go before release, PlayStation and Firewalk Studios will need to do a lot if they want Concord to replicate the success of games like Helldivers 2. No battle pass is a good start, and implementing changes such as a free-to-play model could also help—but then again, if the game did go F2P, it’s difficult to envision the game not prioritizing a battle pass in order to make money.
