Squad Early Access Preview

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Tactical shooting is a tough thing to get right but Squad totally hits the nail on the head with its adrenaline pumping and nail-biting Squad based combat. Slowly pushing through enemy lines with eight team mates covering your back, Squad makes you really feel an important part of a team with a real role to play in order to make sure you complete your objective.

Gameplay

Starting off in a base, in attack and secure your mission is to push forward and capture the bases between you and your enemy’s main base and to reduce the enemy’s tickets before yours run out. To do this, teaming up is essential so jumping into a squad with a good, confident and knowledgeable squad leader is a must. With orders being given over voice communications by the squad leader, you all jump into an APC and start moving towards the first base.

This is where a confident squad leader is really needed and actually makes the game far more immersive. With the orders being dished out, you slowly make your way towards objectives, taking the time to scout areas out before moving into them is essential as not properly surveying the area will quickly lead to yours and your team’s demise.

Every shot counts in Squad and suppression effects make a massive difference in fire fights as it begins to blur your screen which makes it so much more difficult to find who’s shooting at you. Hopefully, if you’ve moved up with your team then they will begin shooting back allowing you the time and chance to escape to a safer position. This proves how important working with your squad is in this game as it really can mean the difference between living or dying and spawning all the way back at base and using one of your team’s valuable tickets.

Each squad comes equipped with two medics plus other roles including riflemen, anti-tank infantry, marksmen plus a few others. Working together and playing on each of the team member’s strengths will increase your chances of success but it all depends on how well prepared the team you’re facing is against.

Nothing beats the feeling of jumping out of an APC and slowly walking through forests in the search for the enemy with your team flanking you on both sides, to then suddenly come under fire and start communicating between your squad on voice communications. Squad does this as well as other tactical shooters, if not better. In my time of playing tactical shooters, I have never been so immersed or felt as involved as I do with Squad.

Graphics

For an Early Access game, the graphics are pretty good but there are a few issues with clipping and some other details. As the game is so early in its development cycle, it would be totally unfair to mark the game down on its graphics but give it its due; the graphics aren’t bad in any sense of the word.

Forests and woods are lush with greenery and the deserts are sandy and barren. Towns and cities have a variety of detailed buildings which can give you good vantage points over roads and alleyways where enemies can be hiding.

Weapon models in first person and the vehicles in the game are nicely detailed and have obviously had a lot of time spent on them, making sure details are right on them which brings a nice sense of realism to the game.

Audio

The whistling of bullets flying past you really provides a high quality of immersion of the game. Guns each have distinctive sounds and the audio quality of the game is exceptional. Vehicles provide realistic sounds and everything seems to have really been looked at in-depth to make sure sounds and the audio are as good as they can be.

The real strength of audio lies in the game is the communications between your squad and your entire team though. The voice communications works superbly well in the game and actually using real radio chat not only makes things easier to understand then someone reciting their life story over radio, but actually increases the realism of the game tenfold.

Longevitity

Being an early access title, the price of the game is relatively cheap a nd actually does come up on sale quite often. I picked the game up for £15 for the deluxe edition which included the game’s soundtrack which I thought was an absolute steal. The game’s full price I think is only about the £20 mark but for that, it’s totally worth the buy if you’re interested in slow pace, tactical shooters.

Each round you play is different and moving from a city map to a forest map brings about its own challenges which you and your squad need to overcome together. This is where the squad leader plays such an important role with his orders and communications.

Before investing in this game, I would highly suggest you get yourself a good headset and microphone to fully experience this game and its full potential. Grab your gear, your weapon, and your headset and GET MOVING SOLDIER!