Blizzard was definitely paying attention to what’s been going on with Firewalk Studio’s Concord.
Last weekend, Concord had its Early Access Beta, which was initially exclusive to consumers who pre-ordered the game but was then opened to all PlayStation Plus subscribers. We reported that the player numbers at the time were not high, peaking at roughly 1,000 players.
At least, those who did play came out of it with good impressions. They noted that Firewalk wanted to try some novel ideas with Concord, but there were also a lot of unappealing elements to the game. Even those players who liked it are not positive about its chances for success, not just because of those early issues, but because of the low player numbers.
Concord entered into its open beta this weekend, and as reported by GameRant, this is where Blizzard stepped in. Matching Concord’s open beta, running from July 18 to 21, Blizzard opened up a test period for Overwatch 2’s latest hero, Juno, from July 19 to 21.
Juno is somehow simultaneously both Asian and Martian. Her real name is Teo Minh, and although her father travelled to Mars’ colony from Earth, she herself was raised in the red planet.
She joins Overwatch itself with a space age costume, complete with astronaut helmet and anime bunny ears, a new Gliding ability, and healing and attack weapons. Juno seems set to be a popular new hero for Overwatch 2, taking on a support role.
We had written extensively on how Overwatch 2’s player community has been let down by the developers and Blizzard, in a huge way, over how their promises of story DLC played out. But, in comparison to Concord, Overwatch 2 is the established dominant player, still making Blizzard, and now, Microsoft, tons of money.
So it’s quite clear that Blizzard smelled blood in the water when word got out about Concord’s Early Access Beta, and decided to target them for their open beta period. But to add insult to injury, Blizzard has scheduled Juno’s official entry into Overwatch 2 on August 20, just a few days short of Concord’s official release on August 23.
Now, if this was a simple Xbox vs. PlayStation thing, that would be one thing. Most gamers have either one of the consoles, and there’s not much overlap between gamers who play PlayStation exclusives, and gamers who play Xbox exclusives. But Microsoft bought Blizzard precisely because their games, like Overwatch 2, are multiplatform.
So Concord is not competing with Overwatch 2 in some abstract console vs console war manner. Firewalk is competing for attention against Overwatch 2 on their own exclusive platform, the PlayStation 5.
We haven’t seen such competition between games since maybe when Bandai Namco released Dragon Ball FighterZ to coincide with Capcom’s struggling Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite. As much as we would feel bad for Firewalk Studios, we have to admit that this could prove incredibly entertaining to watch play out. And now we’re waiting to see what Sony will do in response, if they can do anything.
In the meantime, you can watch Juno’s announcement trailer below.
