Enlisted Review - Our regiment has arrived

The shooter from the publishing house Gaijin Entertainment has finally reached the stage of open beta testing, which means it's time to tell more about it. How Darkflow Software managed to turn a session shooter for 20+ people into a large-scale theater of war with a hundred participants and how the project has changed since the closed beta - we tell in the Enlisted review.

 

• Developer: Darkflow Software
• Publisher: Gaijin Entertainment
• Open Beta Date: April 8, 2021

 

The shooter Enlisted is another multiplayer ode to the events of World War II under the wing of Gaijin Entertainment. Recall that this is the only team so far that has managed to adequately compete with the extremely popular series of Wargaming projects, bribing connoisseurs of military equipment with an alternative approach to combat simulation and an amazingly beautiful game engine .

And it just so happened that Enlisted development also took place at another surge of popularity of tactical shooters when HYIP around Red Orchestra and Arma little subsided, and on the stage, which is usually marking the audience of hardcore gamers, choose a modern newcomers, such as the magnificent Squad and no less promising Hell Let Loose.

But Enlisted, despite the focused faces of the engineers working on the fortifications and the rally, and the limited supply of reinforcement points, did not climb to compete with the young and evil competitors, nor did it intervene in the endless crush caused by the casual giants Call of Duty and Battlefield, but dug in somewhere in the middle and confidently waved from the trench to the audience of all the above projects at once.

The main tasks of the game are clear and simple, it costs nothing to join the process. Two teams of about 10 - 12 people each fight to the death for the strategic positions marked on the map. It can be an offensive and capture for one, and a defense for another, it can be a battle to hold areas, but there are certain targets in each session.

The picture in Enlisted is very good, and during the CBT process, the developers did an excellent job on optimizing the game. And if earlier I had to simplify shadows, abandon high-resolution effects and improved reflections for the sake of more or less even fps, now with the maximum values   of almost every option, even the image quality in the scopes, the frames remain consistently high.

At the same time, some objects in Enlisted deform under heavy fire, doors and windows scatter to pieces, tanks blown up in battle remain to burn out on the field and become shelters for soldiers going on the offensive, and corridors and dirty streets, disfigured by tracked vehicles, cover the bodies of the dead for quite a long time. ...

Arcade controls are replete with pleasant features. For example, by switching to a tank gunner, you can still control vehicles, main weapons, and a heavy machine gun at the same time. Thanks to the mini-map and the icon showing the position of the tower relative to the hull, looking through the telescopic sight, you can easily orient yourself in space.

And the infantrymen know how to peek out from around the corners, easily jump over rather high fences, hide in the grass and even put their weapons at point-blank range. So, looking out of the window, you can hoist the barrel onto the frame, thus reducing the spread when firing, or fall under an allied tank, laying the sector PPD on the ground, and shoot bursts at opponents, crumbling under the onslaught of the T-60.

But if the developers limited themselves to this, Enlisted would not be so unique. The main feature of the main game mode is the system of units under the control of the player. Some time ago it seemed to me that this was not so much a feature as the Achilles heel of the project, but the longer I followed its development, the deeper I got into the gameplay, the more I became more convinced of the opposite.

Players take into battle a certain number of foot regiments consisting of several people. One of them is always under the control of the user, while the others follow the leader and imitate violent activity, lie down when the leader falls to the ground, and take cover when the player stops.

The bots are still dummies, but they finally learned how to shoot. They do not differ in accuracy, intelligence - and even more so, and the only command available to the player to "control the position" is taken literally and begin to dig in in the specified area and actively, but almost to no avail.

Most of the participants in the sessions who understand the game strive to save reserve soldiers, so they try to keep them away from active hostilities, but as soon as the commander moves a little away from the wards, the retention order is canceled, and the soldiers inspired by their freedom rush to the rescue of their lonely comrade.

At the same time, each of the guys has an awl hidden in a certain place, so even if you try to keep them in some house or behind a stone fence, you will soon find that the soldiers are bored in the shelter, went to firing positions and are actively dying under enemy fire.

Situation: you are in a trench, and somewhere ahead there is a fierce battle. Your guys follow you in single file to the machine-gun bunker, where the trench widens a little, where you can even sit out the shelling, and you leave your comrades to hide, and you yourself rush into battle.

Very soon, however, a group of military men, who at first obediently followed your sign under the arches of the capital structure, will come out for reconnaissance. The couple will certainly leave the trench and engage in a firefight with the arriving reinforcements of the enemy, others will stick out the tops of their heads and catch bullets in them, and the most cheeky will certainly climb right onto the roof of the bunker, stretching out there at full height. All that is missing is a flag with a pointer where exactly to throw the grenade in order to hook all reserve soldiers at once.

And yet you have to give them their due. The guys from the regiment are usually the first to notice the enemy. It is they, and not other players, who will cover your back when you run in a group into an object occupied by the enemy and find yourself under a hail of whistling bullets from nowhere. If before, calmly reloading Mosinka, I shot the bots one by one and did not fear a response, now the second or third AI will certainly shoot me in the forehead.

And finally, it is your guy, who will defeat you with a well-aimed sniper shot , will instantly turn into a fierce avenger under your control, who is well aware of the enemy's position and is already going around the house to finish off both the dastardly shooter and all his slow comrades.

Here's what I want to say: at some point, you accept the Enlisted rules, get imbued with the spirit of war, and your dummies become Senya Konovalov, Gavrilov Romka, Johnny Richards and some Rainhard who, without hesitation, will close you from the bullet with their chest, whom you will protect from the tank, rushing at it with explosives and dying from the fire of the accompanying people.

They will die from their own rash actions, from stupid, unnecessary heroism, intoxicated with patriotic rush or simply bewildered by fear. Cruel, fast and atmospheric, thickening an already good immersive. And there is definitely something about that.

Each character in the game is customizable, which is another great feature of Enlisted. As part of the campaigns, you will take part in the battles for Moscow and Tunisia, invade Normandy and fight for Berlin. Playing for the chosen side, you will receive units, weapons, types of equipment and specializations of soldiers that are inaccessible until a certain time.

Enlisted is full of not only fighters, snipers, but tankers. There are radio operators, engineers, fighter pilots, grenade launchers, machine gunners, soldiers with mortars and flamethrowers, too, will eventually become available. By default, each regiment has restrictions on the number of soldiers and their specialization, but this can be influenced in the improvement system.

Here, for special tokens, which are received by the squads that have distinguished themselves in battle, you can not only expand the number of active fighters in the personnel, but also unlock a slot, for example, for a sniper, and increase the maximum possible squad rank, which is also limited by default.

The rank system is responsible for the passive skills of the fighters that you choose when a soldier reaches a certain level. The higher his level, the more he will be able to carry passive skills, if he has enough ability points, the number of which already depends on his rank. It's a little difficult, but over time you understand what's what.

In addition, each soldier has his own equipment. Some slots, for example, for a main weapon or a grenade, are available immediately, while others, for anti-tank mines, pistols or a backpack , are also unlocked by squad points in the upgrades section, as well as a weapon modification that can be improved and equipped with additional modules.

Instead of currency, the game provides so-called requests - cards of different quality levels, which are exchanged for specific or random equipment, weapons or fighters. Extra soldiers can be sent to the academy, where, after a certain period of time, they will receive a new rank, but one of three will return to choose from. And the surplus weapon - to disassemble, and improve the existing one, using the received spare parts.

In a word, there is a lot of room for individualization of each regiment, and each soldier in this regiment. On the CBT, there were loot boxes in the provision , and you did not know in advance what type of serviceman or what weapon you would receive, you only knew his rank. Now you can focus on the development of a particular regiment.

Enlisted has a premium subscription that doubles the experience gained for armies, squads and fighters, and also speeds up the training of soldiers in the academy and expands the reserve. There is also a premium pass with additional rewards for each level, as well as a store with unique units hidden in the supply screen - there will be something to “donate” with meaning, if you have an aspiration for that.

Most of the shortcomings moved to MBT from closed tests. These are still some problems with climbing objects, when you are under fire trying to climb a ladder or climb through a window, and the soldier definitely slides off and does not immediately cling to pull himself up.

This is a complete lack of cooperation between team members. Everyone is odd in their own way and very many, carried away by the war, forget to mark the enemy and stubbornly ignore the goals, thereby letting down the allies who are in the minority in strategic positions.

And these are small areas of the map that continue to piss me off. Once you cross the invisible border, you will be perceived by the system as a deserter. The very idea of   the framework is clear, it concentrates the war in the right area, accelerates the entry into a fierce battle, but in my opinion the developers got carried away a little, limiting the freedom of players on the field.

Enlisted is an excellent FPS, if not to say - an outlet, between very casual shooters, too hardcore games and countless royal battles. As I noted in the preview, a player of any level and degree of skill can enjoy it, only some, more experienced guys, will relax, and for others, less experienced, Enlisted will become a surmountable challenge.

If you get bored of the main mode, you can always play single player, where you will find yourself face to face with other players without equipment and bots, and at the same time upgrade your favorite fighter, or go to the shooting range and "test" each gun in a calm atmosphere.

Enlisted is well optimized, has a modern look and feel, and is available on consoles and PCs for free. What else is needed? You need to download and try it yourself. The chances that the Gaijin project will hook you for a long time is quite high. Well, we will watch the innovations right up to the release of Enlisted and quietly hope that one day the soldiers will be able to pump not only the rank and passive skills, but also the AI   agility indicator.