Squad is a tactical first-person shooter video game “set in the current modern day environment” developed by the Canadian studio Offworld Industries. It is self-published through Steam and is a spiritual successor to the multi-award-winning Project Reality modification for Battlefield 2. The game features several playable factions, including various insurgent and state forces. Squad became available on Steam Early Access on December 15, 2015, and was officially released on Steam on September 23, 2020.
Gameplay
Squad is a squad-based warfare game. A single match consists of two belligerent factions, each divided among smaller squads that could have a maximum of nine players. Each squad is made up of individual classes selected by the individual players. Available classes include medic, combat engineer, anti-tank specialists and various types of riflemen. A squad of players are led by one squad leader who can communicate with other allied squad leaders and construct firebases and defensive emplacements like crew-served weapons and sandbags.
Squad borrows its gameplay from its predecessor Project Reality, placing heavy emphasis on communication, coordination and teamwork, with matches occurring on large-scale maps up to 16 km2 in size featuring many different land vehicles such as MRAPs, IFVs, APCs and tanks, as well as transport helicopters. The two teams fight to complete various objectives such as capturing tactical locations, destroying weapon caches, and depleting enemy reinforcements.
The seven current playable factions in the game are the British Army, the Canadian Army, the United States Army, the Russian Ground Forces, and the semi-fictional Insurgents, Irregular Militia, and Middle Eastern Alliance.
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’ Unreal Engine 4.
On April 5, 2015, Squad appeared in Steam’s Greenlight service and was announced in an update called “Vote For Us”. It was officially greenlit eight days later.
Squad was released on Steam Early Access on December 15, 2015, and officially released on Steam on September 23, 2020.
Squad is currently in version 2.14 which released in March 2022.
Kickstarter
The Kickstarter 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
