2020-01-01_PC_Gamer_(US_Edition

especially true in cities where there

are too many windows to cover.

REAL TALK

In a shooter that pushes authenticity

at its core, at what point does realism

get in the way of making a better

game? It’s a common discussion at

Offworld Industries that continues

today. By and large Squad’s

mechanics skew toward simulation.

Weapons bounce with appropriate

recoil, bullets penetrate walls, and the

backblast of an RPG can kill a

teammate if you’re not careful. But

Squad also makes lots of small

concessions to ‘video-gameyness’ in

favor of usability. Your map, for

instance, has a full view of every

teammate’s location. Healing bullet

wounds is reduced to a medic

holding left click to raise your HP.

For Offworld, ‘realism’ doesn’t just

mean simulating reality in every

aspect. “We’re always more

concerned with player behavior than

technical realism,” Ross told me. “If

we’re trying to drive a realistic

behavior and create an authentic

combat experience, we will do

unrealistic things.” Ross used the

medic role as an example of this.

Even if treating wounds takes a lot

more in real life than just applying a

bandage, the way the class is

balanced pushes me into realistic

scenarios. Simplifying the design

makes the action more fluid while

achieving the role-play and

storytelling that Offworld is going for.

Authenticity doesn’t always lend

itself to balance, though. Every

faction has completely different

weapons that aren’t created equal. On

some maps one team plays the

well-equipped US Army while the

other plays a fictional insurgent

group. As an insurgent medic, my gun

has no sight. I have no chance against

a far-off enemy with an ACOG scope.

Despite the disparity, Offworld

maintains a relative balance by

restricting the faction to maps with

plenty of close combat-friendly areas.

SQUAD GOALS

Squad has been a big success for

Offworld during its life in Early

Access. Over four years, new factions,

weapons, vehicles, maps, and modes

have bolstered the game’s depth.

Today Squad is closer than ever to

Offworld’s original vision for a

standalone Project Reality. As I spoke

with the team in October, they had

just released a big update that adds

helicopters to select maps.

The question of when to end

Squad’s Early Access period is more

spiritual than technical. “We set

ourselves a line of goals back when

we did the Kickstarter campaign that

basically says, ‘This is the product we

want to develop. If we have all of this

in, then we consider it complete’.

That vision still holds up,” Rothermel

says. The last things on that list

include the commander role (a new

class that can order airstrikes and

scout enemy territory with a drone)

and 100-player servers. There’s no

official date, but Rothermel expects

that by the time you’re reading this,

these goals will have been met and

Squad will officially be out.

That doesn’t mean the end of new

Squad content. Rothermel assured

me there’s still an “extensive plan” to

continue development after launch.

Part of that plan is continued support

of the official Squad SDK, which

anyone can download for free. With

the SDK, modders can create new

maps, modes, and even implement AI

(with limitations). As a studio

founded by modders, support for

community content is a focus for the

company going forward. Soon,

Offworld will allow officially licensed

servers to run mods endorsed by the

developer. In an increasingly rare

move for games in 2019, post-launch

support will come with zero

monetary strings attached. Offworld

has no plans to introduce

microtransactions or other paid DLC.

Further under the hood, Offworld

is hard at work rebuilding Squad’s

RIGHT: Maps are

intricate mazes of

hills and roads based

on real geographic

locations.

Squad

FEATURE