Harmony is a reliable, well-made recreation. Or fairly it was. I’m going to battle with tense in terms of writing about Harmony, as a result of, as of Sept. 6, the sport has been shut down indefinitely, simply two weeks into its existence. Will it ever come again? Firewalk Studios, which developed the sport for Sony, says it’s taking Harmony offline and refunding consumers whereas it “decide[s] the most effective path forward.” But it surely’s tough to check a more healthy future for a recreation that few folks appeared to vibe with and many individuals actively rooted for to fail.
So many decisions made within the rollout for Harmony, which has reportedly been in improvement for at the very least six years, has felt baffling. Sony and Firewalk first revealed the sport in early 2023, within the type of a retro-futuristic, synth-drenched teaser trailer that conveyed virtually nothing in regards to the recreation besides its sense of fashion. We realized on the time that Harmony can be a “new PvP multiplayer first-person shooter” when it launched in 2024, however no distinctive promoting level was promised.
A full 12 months later, Harmony reemerged. A slick cinematic launched the alien weirdos, foolish robots, and hardened mercenaries of Firewalk’s sci-fi world. It appeared form of enjoyable, if vaguely acquainted. We additionally bought our first have a look at Harmony’s gameplay shortly after, which conveyed some mixture of Future’s Crucible, Guardians of the Galaxy’s wise-cracking misfits, and Overwatch’s hero-focused mechanics. These are three beloved properties (or they had been as soon as), but Harmony was initially met with a shrug.
Throughout two beta check weekends and at its late-August launch, gamers didn’t present up for Harmony. The sport’s reception made headlines for its low participant counts — the PC model peaked at round 700 concurrent gamers, in accordance with SteamDB, a demise knell for the sport. Nobody gave the impression to be considering watching different folks play Harmony both, with solely a small variety of Twitch streamers sticking with the sport post-launch day.
In concept, Harmony ought to have appealed to an viewers that needed one thing authentic (learn: not a sequel) and didn’t need the aggressive, battle pass-powered monetization ways pervasive in lots of trendy multiplayer video games. Firewalk delivered on some stage — the sport performs nicely sufficient — however Harmony’s core concepts merely didn’t align with how folks really play video video games like Harmony.
Firewalk’s most compelling twist on the formulation is its hero-switching mechanics.In Harmony, gamers are inspired to swap between characters, referred to as Freegunners, once they respawn. Doing so grants the whole workforce a variety of perks. Selecting a personality just like the sniper Vale, for instance, will buff each different workforce with longer weapon vary. Then selecting a personality like fungal weirdo Lark will increase everybody’s reload velocity. These crew buffs stack, making your workforce more practical over the course of a match.
So character switching is inspired, which can be evident in the truth that sure Freegunners have deployable tech: Lark can drop buffing Spore Seeds, Duchess can construct partitions, and Daw can lay down therapeutic pads. These deployables persist (offered the enemy workforce hasn’t destroyed them), even if you’ve switched to a different character. A wise workforce can shortly stack an extended listing of buffs and package out their aspect by tactically selecting and switching between characters, resulting in some intriguing dynamics.
However these dynamics are delicate, and just a bit boring, very like the remainder of Harmony. Worse, this method appeared opposite to how lots of people play character-focused video games, the place they concentrate on a most important or a small handful of characters and attempt to good them. Worst of all, they’re not very nicely defined by the sport’s mealy tutorial.
The sport’s mechanics lacked the form of persona which may make up for these shortcomings. Gunplay feels strong, however there are not any flashy ultimates or ending strikes to construct thrilling recreation moments round, and matches can finish in unexciting methods. Hardly ever in my time with the sport over the previous two weeks did I expertise the joys of victory in a close-quarters contest. Many video games had been blowouts. Most of those matches didn’t compel me to requeue for one more spherical of Harmony. The sport’s development system gave me a bunch of alternate coloration outfits and tchotchkes with which I may customise my character as I earned XP, however I discovered little of that beauty stuff compelling sufficient to grind to unlock.
A part of my apathy towards the sport comes from its characters, most of that are fairly bland. Many don’t strongly convey their powers or roles nicely past their silhouette or the weapon they’re holding. I usually discovered myself reviewing the character loadouts and skills of its heroes, confused by their incoherent combos of weapons and abilities. I by no means actually gravitated towards any of Harmony’s Freegunners: some have boring, unattractive designs, some have turned me off with their samey, smarmy attitudes, and a few simply don’t really feel all that attention-grabbing to really play as. In addition they have dangerous, forgettable names (Daw, Lennox, 1-OFF, Vale, and so on.) that don’t provide a clue about their roles or what their talents are.
Firewalk’s artists definitely put in nice effort and expense to make the world and characters of Harmony attention-grabbing. The alien planets look stunning. Menus and UI parts are sharply designed. The studio has additionally launched quite a few animated character shorts and the sport has weekly cutscenes that push the story of the misfit Freegunners ahead. There’s a large quantity of written lore baked into the sport too; if you wish to spend time soaking it up, there’s an interactive map of text-based entries that explains the planets, know-how, transport lanes, and gasoline sources of Harmony’s universe. I by no means discovered any of that extraneous story all that compelling thus far, regardless of there being a lot of it. Sony and Firewalk appeared to take with no consideration that folks would present up and be considering its characters and lore, and even within the recreation itself.
The lore, characters, and gameplay of Harmony didn’t resonate with a broad viewers. It’s a bummer to see a stab at one thing authentic simply whiff utterly, and for its detractors to pile onto it, when folks’s livelihoods are at stake right here. However having performed Harmony from its betas to its present state, I perceive the collective shrug for the sport. It didn’t do sufficient attention-grabbing issues to take me away from Overwatch 2, a recreation I play virtually every day, nor did it appear to distinguish itself from entrenched multiplayer video games like Valorant, Counter-Strike 2, Apex Legends, and a dozen others. Harmony’s rivals have the benefit of being free to play, which Firewalk’s recreation didn’t. However the recreation’s rivals additionally managed to face out for a lot of different causes: likable characters primarily based on acquainted heroic archetypes, mature and distinct gameplay modes, gunplay and character stability honed over years of testing and suggestions.
Harmony couldn’t compete. It merely didn’t have the charisma or uniqueness of most of the video games that got here earlier than it. It didn’t have a definite sufficient persona, and it’s bewildering to assume that former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan as soon as boasted that it could be “a sturdy addition to PlayStation Studios’ portfolio.” I’m undecided what it was he noticed within the recreation that satisfied Sony it may escape, or what mismanagement went on behind the scenes that led to the ultimate failed product.
Clearly a number of ardour and energy was put into Harmony in an effort to make one thing new. And hopefully, Firewalk and Sony will discover some technique to dig the sport out of its early grave. On the very least, Harmony’s higher concepts may encourage different video games to undertake its handful of improvements — and as a lesson for different builders to not repeat the miscalculations that Sony and Firewalk made right here.
