Recent reviews by Firow

The TL;DR: If you liked Skyrim 1st person, you'll very likely love this to.

If you're looking for a "Skyrim like" game, then this is very likely to be it for now, as it scratches that itch even more so that oblivion remastered in my opinion.
- Feels a bit like a more modern and darker/ grittier twist on the 1st person RPG.

Story:
Very dark revolving around mass-murder and the events that let to it, as well as allowing the player to make choices one way or another for the future.
- choices actually matter in the end, some choices might even slide under the radar in the moment, but will at times have a larger impact in the end.

Combat:
It's a lot like Skyrim, in that animations and strikes are somewhat limited, but as opposed to Skyrim the place you impact matters (locational damage), as well as your weapon type (blades glance on heavy armor, but blunt weapons impact and punch through).
- The game also has parry, dash, and block, which all add to the complexity of melee combat.

Melee is the more skilled appoach, but can equally become incredibly powerful, archery is a bit underwhelming, but can also become strong enough.... And lastly magic... It's rather OP mid-late game, but requires some investment to get rolling.

Enemies are also very varried, with different attack patterns, weapons, and spells.
This means that some enemies may be best dealt with by rushing, and others should be kept at a distance, while others can be blocked, but equally others are simply overwhelmingly strong.

Overall it's a fairly "balanced" experience, but with plenty of options to become a "demi-god" in the late game.

Exploration:
- This is the biggest draw in my opinion, with plenty of secrets and hidden gear/spells to stumble across, along with random hidden bosses.
(The devs really poured their hearts into it).

Performance:
- Runs okay on mid-high end systems, but has some stability problems in certain zones, but the devs are fairly quick to respond to the Discord reports and are actively patching it.

Overall this is my favorite RPG from the past decade.
- But please don't expect another Skyrim, it is very much its own, but Skyrim is a well-known point of reference to compare.

EDIT:

While I have played Squad quite a bit for a few years, the large update named "V6.0 Infantry Combat Overhaul" unfortunately did not sit well with me.

The goals for the update:

- Increase length of fights.
- Reduce the impact of lone wolfs (solo players).
- Increase emphasis on teamwork mechanics, which mainly meant supression.
- Increase gunplay diversity, to create choices between optics, since the old meta meant that the magnified optics were greatly outperforming iron sights and holo sights.

While I do not disagree with some of the goals, the implementation of them left a lot to be desired.

After the update most gunfights became a mess of supression, without either side being able to effetively kill each other beyond 200m.
Gunhandling was also drastically nerfed, creating the sense that your character has never held a rifle before, or even used an optic for that matter.

I can unfortunately no longer recommend this game, since I myself no longer feel drawn to play it.

If enough changes are made, I may revisit the game and this review, but for now there are better options out there.


** OLD REVIEW **

Can the game be amazing and fun - yes! Do I recommend this for everyone? - No.

The experience of the game largely depends on what servers / communities you play with. If you play the core game with no moderation (no rules or admins), the game will become a race to make the first unit and lock others out and a race to get armor, then proceed to rush the enemy and end up spawnkilling them near their main spawn.

If you play on moderated servers with established rules and active admins, then you may experience a great sense of teamplay - other times not so much.

Before you buy it though...

- Microphone and willingness to use it is REQUIRED for a good experience (People will quickly kick or become hostile towards you, if you do not communicate)
- This is not battlefield or call of duty, running of solo to pull off 360 noscopes will probably get you kicked/ killed.
- You will die without knowing from where and you will get into situations in which you have no option to survive, especially if you're new to tactical shooters.
- You will end up running... A lot..
- Armor is not like battlefield or call of duty, you need a driver, gunner, commander and possibly a loader (has a machinegun). Where you hit the enemy matters as much as what you hit him with (Armor piercing on his front turret will likely bounce, but even a high explosive may hurt if you can hit him up the rear)

Still here... ?

If I haven't scared you off, here are my personal tips:
- Play. The. Tutorial. Like really...
- Try different graphic settings, shadows especially makes a big difference in enemy visibility (game looks better with them though)
- Start as infantry and pick rifleman, but remember to join a squad.
- Find a server that seems to have active admins and have a ruleset you agree with.
- Try NOT to give up when you die, generally it isn't worth throwing away a ticket to respawn if you have friendlies within 100m. Sometimes it is the right choice, but before you know which is which, it's a good idea to hold on for a medic.
- Not all squad leaders know what they're doing, do not be afraid to join another squad if it turns out your squad leader is a fool.
- Defending is often as important (if not more), than attacking... But you may end up waiting 30 minutes without getting shot at or shooting anyone.


As you can probably tell... Squad is a community based game, with in-depth enough mechanics, while also being easily accessable.
If you want a good sense of what the game is, check out some lesser known streamer playing it (bigger streamers will often give you the wrong sense of what a game is like)

Hope this helped you make an informed decision.

but for now there are better options out there.

The base gameplay is very fun, if maybe a bit monotonous. Great shooting mechanics and the fact you need to think about where and when you hit somebody adds a lot in my opinion

Example: You're in a weaker light tank facing a heavy armoured tank who just spotted you, You could go for the body shot, that will likely bounce / deal insignificant damage. On the other hand, you could try to take out his turret by killing the gunner. He won't die, but he will not be able to return fire for a while.

Now this works great on some tanks and not at all at others.


There's also amazing detail in the different tanks (stats, visuals and general feel)



Now... the the reason I will never recommend this game in it's current state is:

after around tier 4-5 you'll hit a brick wall in terms of progression, it'll easiely take you 40 hours to unlock the next tank and you'll need several tanks in the same tier to continue progressing.

The premium is one option, even then it's a long long grind.

You'll also feel another limitation in terms of "Silver Lions" (ingame currency) not only will you need 40 hours for exp unlock, you'll also need to grind as many if not more, to unlock a tank / it's upgrades.

And if you think that's fair okay then, just hope you don't get damaged and have to repair, that'll set you back a few thousand Silver Lions. (you can actually lose currency from a match, if you repair enough)

And last nail in the coffin: Lot of the premium tanks (real money) are often WAY stronger than the free equivalent, leaving you with a sour taste in your mouth when getting repeatedly killed by them, even when you get the first hit.


Terms of balance: It's really bad mid-tear... but supposedly it gets better at end-game (Never got there)