''Squad'' is a

tactical Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics ** Political tacti ...

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...

video game developed by the Canadian game development studio Offworld Industries.

Self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pri ...

through

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

, it is a spiritual successor to the ''

Project Reality ''Project Reality'' is a series of combined arms tactical first-person shooter video game modifications which aim to create a realistic combat environment where the core gameplay encourages teamwork and coordination. The original version, ''Pro ...

modification Modification may refer to: * Modifications of school work for students with special educational needs * Modifications (genetics), changes in appearance arising from changes in the environment * Posttranslational modifications, changes to prote ...

for ''

Battlefield 2 ''Battlefield 2'' is a first-person shooter video game, developed by DICE (company), DICE and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows in June 2005 as the third game in the Battlefield (video game series), ''Battlefield'' franchise. P ...

''. Set in the modern day, the game features a mix of real and semi-fictional content, with most of the game taking place in realistic conflicts, such as insurgencies in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and conflict in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

. ''Squad'' became available on

Steam Early Access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alph ...

on December 15, 2015, and was officially released on Steam on September 23, 2020.

Gameplay

Squad is a tactical shooter based around

squad In military terminology, a squad is among the smallest of military organizations and is led by a non-commissioned officer. NATO and US doctrine define a squad as an organization "larger than a team, but smaller than a section." while US Army do ...

gameplay designed to encourage teamwork and communication. A match is played between two belligerent teams, with each team being made up of squads that cap at nine players. Players in squads select from various soldier classes which play distinct roles in combat, such as

suppressive fire In military science, suppressive fire is "fire that degrades the performance of an enemy force below the level needed to fulfill its mission". When used to protect exposed friendly troops advancing on the battlefield, it is commonly called cov ...

from an automatic rifleman,

anti-tank Anti-tank warfare originated from the need to develop technology and tactics to destroy tanks during World War I. Since the Triple Entente deployed the first tanks in 1916, the German Empire developed the first anti-tank weapons. The first deve ...

support from a

MANPATS Man-portable anti-tank systems (MANPATS or MPATS) are traditionally portable shoulder-launched projectile systems firing heavy shell-type projectiles (although throwing and lunge weapons have existed), typically designed to combat protected target ...

gunner, or medical support from a

combat medic A combat medic, or healthcare specialist, is responsible for providing emergency medical treatment at a point of wounding in a combat or training environment, as well as primary care and health protection and evacuation from a point of injury ...

. A squad of players is led by a squad leader, who can communicate with other allied squad leaders and construct structures such as forward operating bases and defensive emplacements. Any squad leader can additionally nominate himself for the position of

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

, who, once voted into position, can coordinate his team's battle plan and call in additional support such as

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

recon and

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...

. Squad borrows many of its gameplay aspects from its predecessor, ''

'', with its

game modes In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics are the rules or ludemes that govern and guide the player's actions, as well as the game's response to them. A rule is an instruction on how to play, a ludeme is an element of play like the L-shap ...

placing heavy emphasis on team coordination. Matches take place on extremely large realistic battlefields up to in size, facilitating the use of a wide variety of vehicles such as main-battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, transport trucks and

helicopters A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

. The two teams, utilizing vehicle and infantry warfare, compete over various objectives, such as strategic locations to hold or weapon caches to destroy. To facilitate

maneuver warfare Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is a military strategy which seeks to shatter the enemy's overall cohesion and will to fight. Background Maneuver warfare, the use of initiative, originality and the unexpected, combined with a rut ...

, squad leaders can construct forward operating bases around the map, which provide a team-wide location for soldiers to

respawn In video games, spawning is the live creation of a character, item or NPC. Respawning is the recreation of an entity after its death or destruction, perhaps after losing one of its lives. Despawning is the deletion of an entity from the game ...

and must be kept supplied by a logistics network. Both teams are kept in check by the "ticket" system, which simulates

combat effectiveness Combat effectiveness is the capacity or performance of a military force to succeed in undertaking an operation, mission or objective. Determining optimal combat effectiveness is crucial in the armed forces, whether they are deployed on land, ai ...

. The loss of strategic locations, destruction of forward operating bases or vehicles and soldier deaths all remove tickets from a team's pool, and a match ends once a team's ticket pool has been reduced to zero. A team that fails at defending too many of its strategic objectives will begin to lose tickets rapidly, starting at a loss of one per minute and capping out at a maximum of ten per minute. As such, teams have the ability to achieve victory in multiple ways, such as exhausting the enemy's ability to fight or by completing all of their tactical objectives. There are nine playable factions in ''Squad'', which change based on the map and game mode being played. The real-life militaries featured include the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

Russian Ground Forces The Russian Ground Forces (russian: Сухопутные войска �ВSukhoputnyye voyska V}), also known as the Russian Army (, ), are the land forces of the Russian Armed Forces. The primary responsibilities of the Russian Ground Forces ...

Canadian Army The Canadian Army (french: Armée canadienne) is the command responsible for the operational readiness of the conventional ground forces of the Canadian Armed Forces. It maintains regular forces units at bases across Canada, and is also respo ...

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (Austral ...

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

and the recently added

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

. Three generic

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

factions are also included: the Insurgents, modeled after various Middle Eastern insurgent groups, the Irregular Militia, modeled after the paramilitaries of

and the

Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

, and the Middle East Alliance, a fictional

military alliance A military alliance is a formal Alliance, agreement between nations concerning national security. Nations in a military alliance agree to active participation and contribution to the defense of others in the alliance in the event of a crisis. ...

amalgamation of the armed forces of various Middle Eastern and

Central Asian Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former S ...

countries.

Development

Development of ''Squad'' was announced in October 2014 when ''Project Reality'' developer Sniperdog (a.k.a. Will Stahl) made a post on the ''Project Reality'' forums. The announcement carried the news that the team of fifteen was making a spiritual successor to ''Project Reality'' on

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, M ...

Unreal Engine 4 Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genre ...

. On April 5, 2015, ''Squad'' appeared in Steam's

Greenlight To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead". Film industry In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to ...

service and was announced in an update called "Vote For Us". It was officially greenlit eight days later. Squad was released on

on December 15, 2015, and officially released on

on September 23, 2020. Squad is currently at version 4.0 as of the 7th of December 2022.

Kickstarter

The

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

campaign started on May 26, 2015. It featured six backer levels with various rewards such as merchandise, in-game rewards, and pre-alpha testing access. Five days after the Kickstarter launch, the game had raised over $200,000.

Sales

The game sold over 3 million copies.

References

{{Reflist

External links

''Squad'' website
2020 video games Crowdfunded video games First-person shooters Kickstarter-funded video games Multiplayer online games Asymmetrical multiplayer video games Tactical shooter video games Unreal Engine games Indie video games Video games developed in Canada Windows games Windows-only games Video games set in Europe Video games set in the Middle East Video games set in Afghanistan Video games set in Canada Video games set in Iraq Video games set in Russia