An unusual feature of Sony's new hero shooter, Concord, is that placeable items, such as healing pads, shields, and walls, persist throughout the round and after respawn. If the opposing team does not destroy your item, it will remain in place throughout the match.

When I heard about this idea, I liked it just for its novelty, but I wasn't sure how big it would actually be; now that Concord's first beta has begun, I can assure you it is definitely not a trivial quirk. Maybe it's just because my team absolutely killed it in the last match with their deployed object strategy, but I've found it to be a lot of fun so far.

One of the modes in Concord is the no-respawn mode, which is won by either wiping out the opposing team or capturing a single point in the center of the map. The first team to win four rounds wins.

I was not as smart as my teammates, and in the first two rounds I loaded my capture point with healing pads, shields, and privacy walls to build a fortress of glowing energy fields.

The other team was still new to the game: they could have focused their fire on the shields and destroyed all the healing pads. But they let us have a special little health spa, so we were pretty much unstoppable: jump out, shoot one, go back in, recover, and repeat.

In another mode, the objective was to grab an object in the middle of the map and retrieve it at one of two points, but the permanence of the placeable object could not be exploited in such an obvious way. This was because there was always a brief skirmish there before one team took the item and ran off.

My healing pad did not move throughout that match, which relates to another notable effect of deployable permanence: the ability to use a particular character's abilities without having to play that character every round, which is one of Concord's specialties. It is one of the best ways to encourage character switching.

A character selection screen appears at the end of every respawn or round, and different types of characters can be selected to gain "crew bonuses" during the match. For example, if you select Doe, a character that drops healing pads and shields, the Tactician's Crew Bonus will allow you to reload your chosen character faster in the future.

While it is possible that large deployable forts may not appear in the high-level meta, the idea that one should not continue to use the same character throughout a match seems deeply ingrained in Concord.

The current Concord beta is only open to pre-orders and PlayStation Plus subscribers, but an open beta will take place next week. If you're in, too, I'd suggest picking a doe in the first round or two. Just put your healing pad or shield somewhere safe and convenient, or if you're feeling brave, stick it directly on the point.