“First-person shooter” is a broad term. It can mean everything from a monster-filled horror game like F.E.A.R., to a sci-fi adventure like Metroid Prime, to a demon-eviscerating romp like Doom. Even narrowing it down to a label like “military FPS” still puts the linear campaign of Call of Duty, the enormous PvP clashes of Battlefield, and the white knuckle extractions of Escape from Tarkov under a single umbrella. Delta Force, the latest entry in a now 26-year-old shooter series, is probably best defined as a bit of each of those last three – with a dedicated large-scale PvP mode, a separate extraction shooter mode, and an (as yet unreleased) campaign, it sits somewhat awkwardly at the center of a that Venn diagram. It is still too early to render a final verdict, but my initial hours playing ahead of launch have already left me intrigued enough that I’m looking forward to my next deployment on the live servers later this week.
Because this release is technically the start of an indefinite “open beta” (which, for a free-to-play game, really just means it’s out), only two of the three main modes are currently available, with the campaign planned as paid DLC somewhere down the line. Of the two that are here now, the Warfare mode is Delta Force’s answer to the big team combat of Battlefield. 64 players duke it out for supremacy across one of a handful of massive, sprawling arenas. The matches I played in the early review period were focused on the Attack and Defend option within Warfare, though King of the Hill and some other time-based modes are apparently going to be available at launch.
Attack and Defend puts one team on offense, tasked with capturing some strategic points before running out of a finite number of respawns, while the other team defends those areas with limitless lives. If the offense succeeds, they refill their respawns and the cycle begins anew on another part of the map until all of the field is seized or the defense stops them in their tracks. It’s a good setup; initially, the offense has the advantage thanks to favorable terrain and an abundance of vehicles, but things even out as the match progresses and the defense retreats toward their home base. This means each side typically gets to spend some time as both the figurative hammer and the nail.
The battles certainly do feel big, which is a good thing. Fast respawns mean both teams are dense with soldiers. Once the bullets and rockets start flying, the chaos and confusion on the battlefield is exciting. It’s particularly fun when you get behind the controls of a vehicle and start running roughshod over the other team. A tank fully loaded with gunners can dominate, but don’t sleep on the impact of a simple machine gun turret on the top of an armored car.
Thankfully, the times I’ve found myself on the wrong end of that tank barrel I haven’t been totally helpless thanks to the varied operatives you can choose from mid-match. These named characters act as a sort of hybrid between a simple loadout choice and a bespoke hero, which fits the jack-of-all-trades theme persistent throughout Delta Force. If you are being overrun by vehicles, it might be a good idea to spawn with a rocket launcher, or if the fight is taking place in open spaces, it could be time to bust out the trusty sniper rifle. Each character has unique abilities that are helpful in battle too, like Luna’s Detection Arrows that can periodically be fired to reveal enemies, but none are so powerful as to outright win a skirmish, let alone a whole match, for you.
I just wish the actual action felt better. Bullet arc and trajectory factor heavily into shooting, so leading your targets is essential for firing accurately at a distance. That, combined with a fast time-to-kill, makes for gunplay more in the spirit of a military sim like Arma. That’s all well and good on its own, but feels deeply at odds with the aggressive pace of play that the objective-based Attack and Defend mode drives. Slow bullets at the mercy of gravity that kill you instantly feel a little too airsoft-like for an intense battle over a key chokepoint.
Get in, get loot, get out
On the other side of things, the Operations mode follows the familiar extraction shooter framework; you and up to two friends can form a three-person squad to enter an area, shoot, loot, and scoot. Whatever you bring back to your base between rounds you can either sell, store, or use in the next attempt, and whatever is on you if you die or don’t escape in time is lost for good. It’s a tried-and-true formula that Delta Force follows to the letter, but the high quality of its execution makes up for that unoriginality. q
Each level is an open sandbox that is dense with potential objectives. Maps easily highlight points of interest for things like bounty targets, safes to plunder, and intel to decode. That might seem like a small detail to praise, but in a genre dominated by games like Escape from Tarkov that are designed to be intentionally opaque, making important information accessible is a nice differentiator. I like being able to just drop a waypoint and know what I’m in for when I get there without having to memorize the maps.
Once you pick your destination, you’ll need to shoot your way through squads of AI soldiers, and occasionally human-controlled enemies. You never know who’s around, or in what numbers, so every enemy encounter starts with some fast risk assessment: do you take the shot and risk letting everyone know where you are, or do you sneak by for the stealthy approach, leaving a potential threat on the field? Making quick decisions with limited information does a good job of keeping the action strategic and interesting. That’s particularly true if you see other people, as they are certainly more dangerous than the bots, but could be loot-rich targets worth taking on.
So far I’m a fan of the enemy variety. My squad has taken down roving bands of riflemen, ducked into buildings to avoid sniper fire, and executed on-the-fly flanking maneuvers to get around riot shields. One memorable moment saw my team pinned down by a massive armored baddie blasting at us with a minigun as we lobbed grenades from behind cover. Another time, a member of our trio was cracking a safe while the other squadmate and I provided cover, and I almost jumped out of my chair when a giant alligator came around the corner and tried to put a stop to our fun.
My primary worry about Operations at this point is the loop loot. There are all sorts of containers everywhere, like file cabinets, coat pockets, fallen enemies, etc. – but after just a few hours with the mode, I rarely bother to check them anymore now that I have a good idea of where to go for the actual high-ticket items. I’m hopeful there won’t be a point where the maps feel “solved” anytime soon, but they are already feeling less dynamic with each run.
The time between them is spent at the Black Site, which functions as your home base. This is where you buy, sell, and make upgrades, particularly to the amount of storage space in your stash. It’s also where you manage the well-built loadouts option. This lets you save a few different kits you can take into battle and rebuild them with just a few clicks. Pieces will be pulled from your inventory first, and then automatically purchased from the store as needed. It’s a fast and slick way to get back in the action, which helps take the sting out of a failed extraction.
Of course, these are all still just my initial impressions – it takes time to get a comprehensive feel for how well a PvP mode like Warfare is working, and there are still a few Operations I haven’t explored, so I’m not quite ready to give a final verdict until I’ve played on the live servers. However, I can say that the extraction mode is a lot of fun in the early going, and I enjoy the scale of Delta Force’s PvP encounters even if I’m not yet sold that this style of gunplay is the right match for that action. It’s at least clear this is a competent free-to-play shooter that can cater to a few different FPS tastes, but it remains to be seen if it has the staying power to keep my interest once the initial novelty wears off.