Online players are attacking the sci-fi hero shooter Concord harshly because of its characters' what many view as "ugly" designs. The recently released game from Firewalk Studios, a first-party developer for Sony, has not received a great review overall. The gameplay reveal has not impressed many PlayStation fans. Meanwhile, the criticism of Concord's character designs is stoking the flames even further.

Concord is the first game from Firewalk Studios, which Sony purchased in the beginning of 2023. Firewalk Studios is led by former Bungie veterans. Fans weren't sure what to anticipate from the game when it was first revealed at the 2023 PlayStation Showcase with just a short CGI teaser, as the teaser gave little away as to what the title actually was. After several months, Concord was ultimately fully revealed during the May 2024 State of Play. The game's creator, Firewalk, revealed that Concord was a live-service, 5v5 first-person hero shooter situated in a world reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy. Regretfully, many players weren't pleased with the game's reveal, and it has been condemned for a variety of reasons.

In a post, Reddit user gpetrakas criticized Concord on the r/gaming forum for having what they deemed to be the "ugliest character designs" they had ever seen. A screenshot of Emari, one of the possible "freegunners," or playable characters, in the future Sony live service game, was given by them as an example. Her purple stripes, yellow helmet, green armor, and blue lipstick all draw attention to Emari's unique design. Many find this unusual color scheme to be unpleasant; Redditors like as RTXEnabledViera describe Emari's appearance as "bland," in contrast to the instantly recognizable characters from hero shooters such as Overwatch.

It appears that many of the other commenters on this topic share gpetrakas' opinion. Particularly, several Redditors made light of the fact that Emari's design resembles a stolen space marine from Warhammer 40K. On the other hand, some people argued that Concord's characters were overly detailed in an attempt to draw attention to them. Naturally, not everyone feels the same way; daywall and Igneous4224, two other Reddit users, said they thought the designs weren't all that horrible. One of the two Redditors, who chose to remain anonymous, actually stated that they felt "the designs are not any different from other hero shooters," calling some of the characters "ugly" and others "cool and unique."

The criticism Concord has already gotten for the character designs is merely the beginning of the backlash. The original Firewalk game was panned by many players for being a live-service game rather than a single-player, narrative-driven one. Conversely, several fans have expressed that Concord doesn't seem that inspiring to them. Though Concord has received mixed reviews, there is still a potential that this 2024 PS5 game will become the next big thing, much like Helldivers 2 did. Only time will tell.