need to be close to the action, but
difficult to access for enemies.BULLET DROP
One time my squad leader decided to
hunker down at an important FOB,
and make it our job to defend it. We
built sandbag barricades, constructed
machine-gun nests, set up ladders to
access the rooftops, and placedThat is not how Squad, a tactical FPS
soon leaving Early Access after years
on Steam, sees teamwork. Squad is
about being a cog in a grand machine.
Matches are long, two-hour struggles
over territory where you don’t know
if you’re winning until it’s over.
Teams are spread across the
kilometers-wide map working
towards different goals. Maps are so
big, in fact, that it’s common to chat
with someone at the main base in the
staging phase, and then not see them
again for the rest of the match.
Squad’s scale is crucial in what
makes organization and coordination
paramount. You can’t just respawn on
a squadmate or at a captured
objective. Squad leaders have to
construct FOBs (forward operating
bases). Because efficient
redeployment is powerful, strategic
FOB placement is important. Theybarbed wire at our weakest flanks.
You don’t get ammo just for
respawning in Squad, so we had to
regularly replenish our stockpile by
making runs back to the main base. If
we didn’t, medics would soon run out
of bandages, our anti-tank soldiers
couldn’t do their job, and even basic
ammo would eventually dry up. I
volunteered to drive the truck.eamwork is a hard thing to pull off
in a competitive military FPS. In
Battlefield, a friend with an ammo
bag or medic kit is nice to have, but
ultimately unnecessary. In
Rainbow Six Siege, teamwork
means providing intel or
synergizing your gadget with
another. In Call of Duty, it means...
not a lot. This is by design—
coordination in shooters ranges
from a nice bonus, to a compelling
but gamified act that lays out clear
combos between player abilities.THICK SKIN How to take out tanks in Squad
TOUGH LUCK
Damage modeling for
vehicles is especially
realistic. Most games
simplify tank armor down to
a vulnerability to shots from
the rear, but Squad takes
things far further.TREAD FLAG
This diagram from the
game’s tutorial shows how
the game assigns a unique
armor value to every piece
of the exterior. So you get
different results depending
where you hit.BOOM OR BUST
Penetrate that armor, and
the effect will vary based on
where you target—often
you’ll simply disable the
engines, though hitting the
ammo storage results in a
dramatic explosion.Squad
FEATURE
THE FIGHT WAS
LITERALLY
MILES NORTH,
BUT I WAS
STILL HELPING
IN A BIG WAY
Chris ‘Irontaxi’
Greig
VP of Publishing
One of the original
designers of Squad.Norbert ‘Norby’
Rothermel
Producer
Served in the German
Armed Forces.PROFILES