Tactical shooter Squad takes Early Access by storm

Squad thumb

Large-scale tactical shooter Squad hit Early Access today, although that choreographed trailer shows off less about the game than it does the United States' defence budget. Squad is from some of the developers behind the Battlefield 2 mod Project Reality, a total overhaul that requires teams to cooperate when faced with vast maps and the brutal realities of proper bullet physics. Squad is pretty much that but newer and shinier—the middle ground between Battlefield and Arma.

This was a Kickstarter baby, raising $435,000 CAD of a requested $184,000, but with the honest caveat that it will take about $3 million to realise the full vision. Offworld Industries has put forward a tentative finish date of late 2016.

Squad

The final product will feature 50v50 strategic battles that preclude lone-wolfing, with vehicles to be added down the line. Going on Steam reviews, however, the condition of the game as it stands is impressive. Base-building and fortification systems are already in place, but the feature that stands out to me is the integrated positional VoIP, one of many pains the developer looks to have taken to force team play.

The downside? This is an unfinished game that is asking for £30/$40, but as it's currently sitting in the Steam top seller spot, you may be in safe hands. I feel a review coming on!

Latest in FPS
Helldivers 2
Arrowhead’s CEO got a call from PlayStation when he said players could save their money and wait to buy Helldivers 2 until the servers were fixed: They ‘asked me what the f*** I’m smoking’
A screenshot of Helldivers 2, depicting a Helldiver saluting while wearing an anthropomorphic facemask
The United Nations asked Helldivers 2 studio Arrowhead if it'd give a talk on psychological manipulation: ‘Could we brainwash an entire community to fight for a fascist state? … Would we be okay with that? Turns out, yeah’
A smiling man in military fatigues
Get in here, stalker: Stalker 2’s Patch 1.3 is here with a whopping 1,200 fixes
CS 1.6 remade in CS: Legacy.
A gorgeous ground-up remake of Counter-Strike 1.6 is on its way to Steam, and one of the game's original creators says 'it really gives me old vibes'
Metro Exodus
'I want to raise this glass to our fans, to our community': 4A Games celebrates Metro 2033's 15th anniversary and hints at next Metro game
Official artwork of Valorant showing the game's characters in a row
Valorant dev accepts there's too much random crap cluttering up the screen: 'The balance team generally agrees with this take'
Latest in News
A group of bandits sweep into a tavern to viciously interrogate its subjects in the D&D 2024 monster manual.
'Hasbro pushed Sigil out of the nest': D&D's latest layoffs happened because the 'distinct monetization path' for its virtual tabletop Sigil never materialized
Varjo Aero
Nvidia confirms 'open issue' with Varjo Aero VR headsets and RTX 50-series graphics cards after affected users ask for help
Adeline Rudolph depicting Mortal Kombat 2 character Kitana, standing ready for combat with a fan splayed in each hand.
Karl Urban as Johnny Cage and Adeline Rudolph as Kitana look like good additions to the Mortal Kombat 2 movie, but I think a flawless victory is still far from certain
Nvidia RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card
A single RTX 4090 managed to brute force crack an Akira ransomware attack in just 7 days
Luna the self learning robot dog
Meet Luna, the new AI robot dog who teaches itself using a digital nervous system and software 'that allows any machine to learn like humans and animals do'
Union organizers and game developers gather at GDC 2025.
Game dev union marches through industry event to demonstrate that it's about 'taking action and organizing change'