Key findings
- Concord’s development spanned 8 years, surprising the gaming industry with its long cycle given Firewalk’s young age.
- Sony’s investment in Firewalk and Concord is evident in the top-notch graphics and a strong marketing push to launch the game.
- Despite intensive marketing efforts, Concord’s launch numbers were disappointing; on the PC, the number of players peaked at just 697.
As Firewalk’s lead character designer Jon Weisnewski confirmed in a recent tweet, Unity has been in development for around eight years. This news comes as quite a surprise to many in the gaming industry, not only because developer Firewalk was founded just six years ago, but also because that’s an incredibly long development cycle for a multiplayer video game, even one that’s now under the PlayStation umbrella as a first-party game.
In April 2021, Sony announced that it was entering into an exclusive publishing partnership with Firewalk Studios, and two years later, the studio was officially acquired by Sony. Although the exact details are a bit hazy, it seems likely that Sony has invested heavily in Firewalk and Unity in recent years. Unity has now officially been released, and while it may not take the lead in PlayStation’s live service division as planned, its first-party budget does give it an edge over the competition.
It is important to note that
Unity
The budget has not been officially announced by Sony or PlayStation, although it was leaked in June last year that Sony spent over $200 million on first-party titles, such as
Horizon Forbidden West
And
The Last of Us Part 2
.
Concord’s first-party status gives it some advantages
Concord’s graphics are top notch
The clearest indication of Unitypresumably higher budget, the graphics of the hero shooter look spectacular across the board. Guardians of the Galaxy Influences, Unity is full of brief moments of vibrant color, with hyperspace loading screens that suddenly light up in a rainbow of light, and certain special abilities that emit a dazzling array of sparks and flashes. Many of the UnityThe particle effects are also appropriately lively, but still feel anchored in the game’s universe.
Although the designs themselves have been criticized as being too generic or derivative, Unity‘s playable Freegunners all feature extremely detailed character models and impressive motion capture. The animations are generally pretty good, and even the Freegunners’ reload animation gives them a subtle but nice layer of charm that sets them apart from one another.
It may not have the same fidelity as a game like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2or the same highly stylized pop as a game like Borderland or Zelda: Tears of the KingdomBut UnityThe visual elements are one of the main strengths. And compared to the more cartoonish competitors, UnityThe more down-to-earth sci-fi art style goes a long way in making it stand out from the crowd.
Concords Marketing ensures that the company remains in the public eye
Another clear indication of UnityThe status of as a first-party PlayStation title is due to its fairly extensive marketing campaign. In addition to several pre-release trailers, Unity has been brought to the forefront of social media platforms such as TikTok, where ads for the game are frequently shown. With UnityThe Open Beta was a bit of a disappointment in terms of the number of active players, this massive marketing offensive before and after UnityThe publication of makes a lot of sense.
But despite all PlayStation’s efforts, UnityThe launch day numbers don’t look too good. According to SteamDB Unity has an all-time peak player count of just 697 players and at the time of writing, three days have passed since the game was fully released. Although UnityAlthough the marketing has kept it in the conversation, it doesn’t seem to have encouraged many gamers to jump on the bandwagon, at least on PC.
