Concord Beta’s User Score and Player Reception Data Does Not Bode Well – Here’s a Breakdown of Everything

In case you didn’t know, Sony is entering the online hero shooter genre with Concord — the first game out of first-part developer Firewalk Studios. In the last two weeks, Concord was available to play in both closed and open betas on PS5 and PC. While a game’s beta reception is not the only barometer for a game’s success, it does give people an idea of the trend the game is leaning towards and, more importantly, what the people think of it so far.

For Concord’s beta weekends, I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that things are looking a bit bleak. Not only were there not a lot of people who jumped in (least on PC) to try the game for free, but even the user reviews that surfaced after don’t exactly show much positivity in terms of reception.

PlayStation Reviews (Early Access Beta)

 * Since there’s no viable way to track the number of players playing on PlayStation, we instead rely on the beta’s reception based on submitted user reviews on the storefront. 

* Reviews come from users who either preordered, were subscribed to PlayStation Plus, or were invited via friend code. 

* Users cannot freely submit a review without owning the product on the PlayStation Storefront. They can, however, submit a review without having played a specific title, as the only requirement is if the title is in the user’s library.

* Reviews could only be submitted when the beta was playable. Once the early access (and open access) beta ended, PlayStation disabled the ability to leave a rating, regardless of whether you did one or not.

By the end of the first beta, Concord had received 2,544 user votes from PlayStation 5 players. Despite our regional storefront being in North America, PlayStation marked the rating as global, which is verifiable when visiting the rating on other region storefronts. Here’s a breakdown of each amount of votes (rounded to the closest whole number) per rating:

• Five Stars – 865 (34%) people said Concord was a five-star game.
• Four Stars – 229 (9%) people said Concord was a four-star game.
• Three Threes – 178 (7%) people said Concord was a three-star game.
• Two Stars – 204 (8%) people said Concord was a two-star game.
• One Star – 1068 (42%) people said Concord was a one-star game.

Looking at the preorder position on the PlayStation storefront, by the end of the early access, Concord had been PlayStation’s 23rd (digital deluxe edition) and 27th (standard) best-selling preorder in the United States. We did not keep track of the position before the beta to tell you whether or not it moved up or down the rankings. 

PlayStation Reviews (Open Beta)

The second phase of the beta, which was open to everyone on PlayStation regardless of pre-order status, saw a significant movement in user-submitted reviews, adding nearly two times the number of reviews than the previous test. This is no surprise, considering open betas generally attract more players versus something locked behind a paywall. We can safely assume that the beta itself saw a massive influx of players, at least on PlayStation, during this second test, though those numbers are anyone’s guess. 

Here’s a breakdown of the number of votes for each rating. Note that the sum comes out at 7280 instead of 7208, possibly bad math or possibly due to additional votes not tallied on the PlayStation Store’s total yet, as the rating that is listed on the main page is “outdated” in that you need to be able to rate the item to have it give an updated count. Since we can’t rate the title anymore, we are stuck with these numbers. 

• Five Stars – 2018 (28%) people said Concord was a five-star game.
• Four Stars – 721 (10%) people said Concord was a four-star game.
• Three Threes – 649 (9%) people said Concord was a three-star game.
• Two Stars – 649 (9%) people said Concord was a two-star game.
• One Star – 3244(45%) people said Concord was a one-star game.

PlayStation Pre-order Ranking

Regarding best sellers on the preorder list for the PlayStation Network, Concord’s Digital Deluxe Edition dropped 10 spots (33, previously 23) by the end of the open beta, with Concord’s Standard Edition dropping 15 spots (41, previously 26). Now, to be clear, most titles dropped in positioning over from last week on the best-selling preorder list. There are many factors and reasons why they did, but the biggest reason is the addition of all versions of EA FC 25 and all versions of Throne and Liberty Early Access Packs, accounting for five spots. 

Still, when looking at all the positioning changes, the biggest winner was both the standard and deluxe editions of Earth Defense 6, each moving up seven spots in the ranking. That leap in preorder shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the game releases on July 25, and it’s common for a game to get an influx of sales days before release. On the other end, though, we have Concord, which had the most significant drop out of any titles moving down 10 and 15 spots for the Digital Deluxe and Standard Editions, respectively. It’s followed by The Casting of Frank Stone, with the Deluxe Edition dropping nine spots and the Standard Edition dropping 11 spots (ranked 48). Here’s a breakdown of the charts, which we recorded on the listed dates.

Concord’s PC Stats

Steam (Early Access Beta)

• During the early access beta, Concord’s player count peaked at an estimated 1124 players. This was achieved on the same day (July 12) the early access beta launched. 
• The second day (July 13) of the beta peaked at an estimated 933 players (down 27% from the previous day), with the third day (July 14) peaking at 630 players (down 33% from the prior day and down 44% from the all-time high), and the last day (July 15) peaking at 339 (down 47% the previous day, down 70% from the all-time high)
• When all four days’ concurrent peaks are added and averaged out, Concord saw 756 players daily (on average) during its four-day (July 12 to July 15) early access beta. 

* Steam counts consist of players who either preordered or were invited via friend code (up to four additional players per invite)

* If we take the Epic Games Store into account (sadly, there are no public trackers,) giving the storefront a generous 60% (Steam is estimated to have 2-3 times more overall active users than Epic Games Store) of what the Steam count was, we estimate that there was between a peak of 1,500-2000 on PC on the first day. It’s unlikely the Epic Games Store player count matched or was significantly higher than the ones found on Steam based on available data of monthly active users each platform has provided (2021 Valve, Epic Games Store 2023). Consoles are typically the exception to that rule, where a game can perform significantly better than its PC counterpart and vice-versa. 

Steam (Open Beta)

• During the open beta, Concord’s player count peaked at an estimated 2363 players, which was achieved on the first day of the open beta (July 18).
• The second day (July 19) saw a peak of 1608 players (down 32% from the previous day), with the third day (July 20) peaking at 1422 (down 22% from the day prior and down 40% from the all-time high) and the last day (July 21) saw a peak of 1080 players, down 24% from the prior day and down 54% from the all-time peak.
• The average daily number of Steam players was 1618 players.

* On Steam, Concord has yet to break the top 100 best-selling titles. Per SteamDB, it has yet even to break the best 1000-selling games. 

Take these numbers as you will, but personally, the Steam stats aren’t exactly what I would call stellar. Despite doubling its all-time peak from the early closed beta access and maintaining more players over the previous test, the numbers are relatively low for being an open beta. Of course, this may all change come release next month, though you would think there would be a much bigger turnout to at least suggest that would be the case. 

Final Thoughts

Despite the low early numbers in the beta, it’s hard to gauge whether the game will be a hit out of the gate or miss its mark entirely. Of course, with the title being a live service game and all, there’s also the possibility that even if it doesn’t hit it out of the park at launch, it could gain a following just by the studio’s constant tweaks and listening to what players want. We’ve seen it happen countless times with the likes of Star Wars Battlefront 2, Battlefield 5, Rainbow Six Siege, and more. In short; if a game doesn’t carve out its own player base at launch, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s over, though that is an added mountain the studio has to climb and overcome if so. 

The good thing about Concord is that it’s not an indie game; it has Sony money, which means Sony can pump money into it as long as they want. Of course, there’s also the possibility that the publisher decides to pull the plug on it fast and have Firewalk work on something else, but we’re hoping it doesn’t come to that. 

At the end of the day, while no one asked for Sony to make a first-party hero shooter, at least the publisher is stretching its legs a bit. We already know Sony is at its top when it comes to single-player, narrative-driven games, and it doesn’t seem like the company is going to stop producing those kinds of games anytime soon. At least with Concord, we can see Sony trying to push for something “new,” and isn’t that worth striving for?

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