Stay-service video games are among the largest gambles within the AAA gaming house. For each Apex Legends, Fortnite, or Overwatch, one other dozen rise and fall with the tide. Sony’s Harmony ($39.99) is the most recent to vie to your consideration. Though it seems Overwatch-like in design, the 5v5 hero shooter has extra in widespread with Future 2 and Halo Infinite, with satisfying first-person shooter mechanics and conventional Crew Deathmatch and goal sport varieties. However being reminiscent—and maybe even too spinoff—of these free-to-play shooters is to Harmony’s detriment, as the sport struggles to outline itself inside the style or to warrant its value. Origin, Characters, and LoreConcord is a sport that couldn’t have arrived at a worse time. The product of a protracted improvement cycle of roughly eight years, Harmony was met with a tepid response after its reveal throughout Could 2024’s State of Play. “Video games as a service” (or GaaS) enterprise fashions at the moment are the business’s soiled phrases as a consequence of live-service video games being canceled mere months after their launch. As single-player video games captured the eye of bigger audiences, Harmony’s supposed base was much less prone to make investments their money and time into what seemed to be a cross between Overwatch and Guardians of the Galaxy.
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But right here we’re. The sci-fi-themed Harmony arrives full of wealthy, prolonged lore. It sees you play as one of many Freegunners aboard the Northstar ship, a crew consisting of a ragtag group of misfits, outcasts, mercenaries, and adventurers seeking to construct a popularity. Harmony leans into the Guardians of the Galaxy vibes early on, with a gap cutscene full of quirky archetypes and character designs that appear impressed by the MCU motion pictures and the 2021 online game.
(Credit score: Sony Interactive Leisure/ PCMag)
Harmony’s characters don’t encourage, titillate, and even look significantly cool. Coupled with Sony’s trademark hyper-realistic graphics, the characters’ lack of favor and, properly, character, clashes with Harmony’s in any other case sturdy artwork course. You’ll be able to inform Sony threw cash at this undertaking. The sport appears to be like nice, particularly on our Alienware AW3225QF 4K QD-OLED monitor, which deftly contrasts the colour palette in opposition to the inky blackness of house. It makes the tasteless character designs really feel even flatter.
It’s a sinful case of delight to launch a shooter with a lot lore. I don’t even care in regards to the lore in video games I like, so my eyes rolled again in my head upon seeing textbook-length backstories for every of the 16 generic sci-fi characters. Harmony additionally has weekly vignettes that increase the world and characters, however they’ve didn’t seize my curiosity thus far. Nonetheless, it is onerous to return down too onerous on the vignettes, as a result of we’re solely at week two of what’s going to be months of story.
(Credit score: Sony Interactive Leisure/ PCMag)
Harmony’s Courses and UnlockablesCalling Harmony an Overwatch clone is disingenuous, although it is an Overwatch-inspired title. Every hero serves a job—tanks, healers, and assist—as you’d anticipate, however Harmony stirs the hero shooter pot with the introduction of Crew Bonuses.Every hero has a cool passive capacity that advantages the entire crew and could be stacked atop different members’ talents. For instance, a personality with the Hang-out Crew bonus grants improved squad mobility, whereas one other with the Technician bonus delivers sooner reloads. Harmony has six bonuses unfold throughout 16 characters, making the general crew composition an essential issue.
(Credit score: Sony Interactive Leisure/ PCMag)
Equally, every character comes geared up with a passive ability. In an uncommon transfer, the passive character abilities aren’t certain to the characters. By unlocking hero variants, you possibly can have totally different character traits for a similar hero. For instance, Teo Variant 1 affords sooner mobility, whereas Teo Variant 2 has extra ammo and grenades.I just like the variants idea, as they demand totally different playstyles relying on the perk. Nonetheless, the variants don’t look a lot totally different from each other. The 2 I unlocked have been simply color-palette swaps, which appears like one other missed alternative so as to add some seasoning to this sauceless shooter.Talking of cosmetics, Sony plans to maintain unlocks free, so Harmony lacks a battle move or in-game currencies. Nonetheless, the simply attainable cosmetics are terrible. They’re colour palette swaps and tiny charms you can barely see in your gun. That mentioned, every character has one costume that appears considerably totally different from the others, however it’s locked behind a degree grind. Accomplished matches degree up your character and total popularity rank, so you have to decide to a Freegunner for some time earlier than seeing attention-grabbing suits. You’ll be able to’t observe your unlocks, however you’re consistently being rewarded—even when the rewards aren’t the perfect.
(Credit score: Sony Interactive Leisure/ PCMag)
Satisfying Gunplay, Lengthy Queue TimesMy gripes apart, there’s no denying that the motion is fairly fulfilling. Weapons and talents pack a punch. The heroes are a mixture of acquainted and recent talents. 1-Off, the trash-loving robotic, sucks up projectiles to construct trash bombs for large harm. Lark, a dwelling fungus, leaves spores behind to buff buddies and hurt foes. It-Z, certainly one of my favourite characters, is an SMG-wielding lizard woman who provides herself a harm buff by bouncing an orb off an opponent and again to her. The 12 accessible maps are well-designed and engaging. I could have a difficulty with the character designs, however Harmony’s ranges, UI, and nearly all the pieces else look actually good.The motion is unfold throughout three totally different sport varieties with two totally different modes. There’s Brawl, your normal crew deathmatch sport sort; Overrun, which hosts the objective-based modes; and Rivalry, the no-respawn mode that mimics Counter-Strike’s bomb-defusal mode. There’s additionally a firing vary, solo coaching, and a time trial mode in case you’re flying solo. Harmony retains you in your toes by biking ranges and modes every spherical.
(Credit score: Sony Interactive Leisure/ PCMag)
The Rivalry sport sort is Harmony’s most compelling mode. Each time your crew takes a spherical, it loses the profitable Freegunner. This forces your squad to play different characters. You’ll be able to customise a “deck,” constructing a customized roster of main and backup Freegunners, together with variants. It is a cool concept. Sadly, Rivalry mode has the longest queue instances, with matchmaking looking for as much as 5 minutes between video games.Not like Helldivers 2, which endured brutal queue instances due to an sudden explosion of success, Harmony would not have sufficient individuals taking part in. With a brutally low Steam peak participant rely of 697 gamers on launch day that makes Suicide Squad seem like a smash hit, Harmony’s launch attracted little fanfare. Dangerous actors on Twitter/X need you to consider it was Black Fable: Wukong’s launch or the inclusion of character pronouns that spelled catastrophe for Harmony, however it’s merely a failure to learn shifting business developments.
(Credit score: Sony Interactive Leisure/ PCMag)
There’s all the time room for enchancment, as even in style video games like Last Fantasy XIV and Rainbow Six: Siege recovered from disastrous launches. Nonetheless, I ponder how a lot better issues can get for the shooter except Sony tosses it on PlayStation Plus or makes it a free-to-play title.On the upside, Harmony can have not less than two seasons of free content material, with the primary arriving in October. (It can embody new maps, modes, vignettes, and characters.) Cross-Platform Play and PerformanceIn a pleasant contact, Harmony affords cross-play and cross-progression between PlayStation 5 and PC. For those who sport on PC, you have to create a PlayStation account to play, however syncing up with Sony gamers is seamless when you do. Harmony runs properly on PlayStation 5, delivering 60 frames per second for a lot of my playtime. Sometimes, the sport buckles when too many visible results pop off directly. Shortly after booting the sport up, I seen stuttering throughout cutscenes, however nothing game-breaking. Please observe that Harmony requires a relentless web connection and affords no offline mode.Verdict: A Bland Hero ShooterConcord is an honest shooter with rock-solid mechanics and AAA visuals, however that’s not sufficient to draw an viewers to yet one more live-service sport. As is, it’s a nice launch, albeit one which feels prefer it was pumped out of a boardroom algorithm. For those who’ve obtained $40 to spare and aren’t hung up by comparisons to related shooters (just like the free-to-play Future 2, Valorant, and the upcoming Marvel Rivals), Harmony is a enjoyable time, flaws and all.Need in-depth online game dialogue? Go to PCMag’s Pop-Off YouTube Channel.
PS5 vs Xbox Collection X/S: We Overview the Subsequent-Gen Consoles
Harmony (for PlayStation 5)
Execs
Enjoyable gunplay and talents
Cool mechanics add gameplay depth
Helps cross-play and cross-progression
Free content material updates
View
Extra
The Backside Line
Harmony is a hero shooter with satisfying gunplay and a few good concepts, however it would not do sufficient to face out from the competitors.
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About Zackery Cuevas
Analyst, {Hardware}
I’m an Analyst and ISF-certified TV calibrator centered on reviewing laptop equipment, laptops, gaming displays, and video video games. I’ve been writing, taking part in, and complaining about video games for so long as I bear in mind, however it wasn’t till just lately that I’ve been capable of shout my opinions immediately at a bigger viewers. My work has appeared on iMore, Home windows Central, Android Central, and TWICE, and I’ve a various portfolio of enhancing work underneath my belt from my time spent at Scholastic and Oxford College Press. I even have a number of book-author credit underneath my belt—I’ve contributed to the sci-fi anthology Beneath New Suns, and I’ve even written a Peppa Pig e book.
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