Following the two beta events for Concord, both of which failed to make a dent at least on the Steam charts, it has been announced that the game will not feature a battle pass mechanic. This is a deviation from most live-service, multiplayer-focused games in recent years after the battle royale title Fortnite popularized this feature years ago. This came at a time when random chance loot boxes were the most popular monetization scheme, something that was criticized for being similar to gambling.
In an FAQ shared by the developer via Twitter, Firewalk Studio explained its plans to abandon the increasingly popular practice. They stated:
Concord does not have a battle pass. We wanted to focus our attention on making Concord a rewarding and robust experience on day one, where just playing the game, leveling up your accounts and characters, and completing jobs yields meaningful rewards.
This is not to suggest that future content and roadmaps, such as seasons will not be featured in the game. There will be content added to the game down the road, however, that content will be made available to players at no additional cost. Firewalk stated, “We’ll be diving deeper into our post-launch roadmap very soon – stay tuned.” In a follow-up tweet, Concord gameplay animation director Mark DeRidder went further by stating, “No Battle Pass, folks. You own Concord, Concord doesn’t own you.”
This news comes at a point where people were looking for something that set Concord apart from the endless growing see of games vying to fill this space, and with the entry cost of $40 for the game, this should at least help justify the decision to not go free-to-play a little. Hopefully, there are some FPS fans out there who tire of the endless grind and are willing to give the game a shot.
Currently, I am working through my own feelings of the beta and should hopefully have something out soon. I found it enjoyable with interesting ideas, but also some issues that need to be addressed should the game want to garner my full attention. As for players, the beta on Steam struggled to crack 2,000 players which is not good even by beta numbers. Compared to Marvel Rivals, which has around 50,000, the game would need to see a larger number of players at launch to succeed. Of course, we really don’t have the number of players from PlayStation yet so our picture could be very unfair.
Either way, I hope to judge the game on its own merits when it blasts off on August 23rd for PlayStation 5 and PC.
