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Freegunners, Concord’s Open Beta launches today, granting you a weekend’s worth of galactic action on PS5 and PC. Jump aboard the spaceship Northstar, meet the Freegunners, then head planetside to take on rival crews across multiple different game modes. Open Beta gives you a chance to try out the 16-strong character roster, and get to grips with Crew Builder, the Job Board and more.
You’ll find additional gameplay details, tips and lore in the ‘How to Play’ section of the Open Beta’s main menu. To bolster that info and arm you with additional gameplay tips ahead of launch, we sat down with Firewalk Studios’ lead gameplay designer Claude Jerome and lead character designer Jon Weisnewski to dig into the intricacies of the multiplayer shooter’s gameplay mechanics and systems.
A Freegunner for everyone
Concord’s 16-strong character roster offers a lot of variety from the off. But there are certain Freegunners in the lineup that are a good fit for certain players based on their experience in the multiplayer shooter genre.
“We actually have a number of characters that are designed specifically to be entry points for players who feel anxiety or stress that come into a game like this,” says Weisnewski. “For that player who’s never played a shooter before, I’d recommend Lark. Lark was designed from the ground up to be inviting [to those players]. Their weapon, the Razor Pod Launcher, blasts out this little sphere that floats in the air. When an enemy gets close to that sphere, it detonates and spawns little homing projectiles that will track down the enemy and do damage… so right out the gate, we have a gun that doesn’t require players to be precise with their aiming.
“One of Lark’s Abilities is to drop a Spore Seed. It creates an area that buffs your team and debuffs the enemy team – you’ll get faster mobility, a little bit of damage resistance. That Spore has a high uptime, so you can be constantly planting. You’ll help your team by running around the map and planting Spore Seeds in key locations. Their other Ability is the Transplant Pod. On first activation they create this little plant, and on second, they teleport back to it. There’s a ton of high level strategic play, but [for newcomers], they have a weapon they don’t have to aim, an Ability that always helps their team and if they get stressed during combat, they can teleport out.”
“Kyps is similar,” Jerome continues. “She’s a spy robot that can plant surveillance traps, she can go into stealth [on dodging]. She can be an effective help for the team in this low anxiety way. The traps can spot people behind walls.
“That feeds into a dynamic of our philosophy – brains versus aims. We want both to matter. It matters if you have thumb skill, but we also want this cerebral approach to combat. Be thoughtful of every move you make, to feel like it matters to the outcome of the match.”
“For the highly competent shooter player, someone who is already very, very skilled at these games, just wants to pick it up and, and be effective right out the gate, I would recommend Teo,” concludes Weisnewski. “Teo was intentionally designed to feel familiar to people who have played shooters. He’s got a very military-inspired loadout: a Guild Guard Rifle, a side arm pistol he can swap to. He has Cluster and Smoke Grenades. He’s got a double dodge. He’s quick. If you’ve played any shooter, he should just feel immediately familiar.”
Crew Roles
Rather than traditional archetypes, each of the 16 Freegunners fall into one of 6 Roles – Anchor, Breacher, Haunt, Ranger, Tactician and Warden. Each has been defined and designed around play styles, with further variety found in the characters that fall within those Roles. “We have three different Rangers,” examples Weisnewski. “Each has a distinct feel to them. We have a more support-leaning character, a defensive-leaning character and a more traditional offensive-leaning character… we hope players will gravitate to one that actually feels like it was made just for them and how they want to play.”
“One of our philosophies we’re talking about is this concept of like recipes versus ingredients,” explains Jerome. “Recipes are this authored, crafted thing that you have to play this way, right? We just give you a bunch of tools and you can pick the way you want to approach combat.” You’ll see each Freegunner’s Role displayed on the Character Select screen.
Character Abilities and Skillful Loops
Every Freegunner has two unique Abilities, mapped to L1 and R1. Not all recharges are built around cooldown time: they differ per Freegunner and are built around the most fun, effective way to reinforce that character’s personality. It’s a resource model Firewalk coin as “Skillful Loops” or “Sloops” for short. “I think Jabali was the pioneer of sloops,” says Weisnewski, the concept successful enough to inspire the studio to apply it all Freegunners. “Take a character like Lennox, a precision shooter. A character with a lot of trust in their thumbskill will have an extremely higher DPS than others. So that’s the skill we’re trying to encourage, train and reward. So Lennox gets his Throwing Knife Ability back on landing a kill.” In contrast, 1-Off’s Trash Bomb recharges by vacuuming up projectiles or items in the world. Find out more about the Ability conditions for each Freegunner in the Character Select screen or in the Freegunners section of the main menu.
Crew combos
“This goes back to that recipes versus ingredients analogy,” says Jerome. “Combos are these implicit combinations of actions and status effects” with Freegunner combative options pairing nicely together. “DaVeers’ Burnite grenade launcher leaves these purple chemical splashes where its projectiles hit. If they hit those with their Ignition Dart, they’ll ignite and explode. But if another character like Haymar uses her fire abilities, it’ll also ignite those chemicals.” Start experimenting during matches and get a feel for complementary skillsets.
Support items
Some Freegunner Abilities are permanent, deploying an item into the combat space that can help your crew or hinder rivals. Examples include Daw’s Heal Pads that top up an ally’s energy bar, or Duchess’s Construct Walls which block paths or provide cover. These will remain even between match rounds, or until the enemy team does something about them. So for multi-round matches, there’s value in long-term strategy by populating the map with useful gear. “It allows you to take advantage of characters beyond their lifespan [during a match],” explains Jerome.
Crew Builder and rolling over Role Perks
Each of the six Freegunner Roles has a Crew Bonus. Rangers, for example, have Improved Weapon Recoil, Tacticians, faster reload speed. In Concord, if your next deployed Freegunner has a different Role, the previous character’s Role-specific perk stacks on top of theirs, ultimately letting you play a much more capable combatant infused with the buffs of 6 Roles. It’s an extra layer of strategy played out over a match as you play through Freegunners to adapt to the situation at hand. Crew Builder, selectable within the Freegunners option on the main menu, allows you to build custom team compositions, deck builder style, to take into specific modes. There’s more details in the “How to Play” menu.
Complete Jobs, get paid
Freegunners are mercenaries, guns-for-hire who roam the galaxy and do high-stake jobs to keep them going. “We want each match to [feed into that fantasy],” says Jerome. “So that shows up in our progression system. The Job Board shows all the different things you can be rewarded for doing in that match. That could encourage Ability usage, kill combinations… when you complete those jobs, those challenges, that gives you XP. Your payout. That unlocks more options, more customisation for your characters.”
Concord’s Open Beta is available on PS5 & PC July 18 – 21. You can listen to an extended interview with Firewalk in the Official PlayStation Podcast, the new episode of which drops tomorrow.