Squad 44

Review with 2000 hours played. Offworld & Mercury Arts destroying the game since 2024. It was nice, until they took over and promised fixing the bugs, adding needed features and reviving the game, that what we who kept the game alive thought so. Instead they remade a lot of features that nobody asked for, added in things nobody asked for, added chapters (new maps and guns) instead of fixing the bugs and ironically new maps and guns were bugged as well; spent a year making maps instead of bug fixing. All for the sake in bringing in new players. They spent months creating a new gamemode "Conquest". It lasted perhaps a little under a month and no servers are playing it. Tons of well-made mods that were almost ready to be used as official content were finally used 2 years later after takeover. They have like 2 coders to essentially fix the game, while the 10-15 others are doing useless things like Level Design, Art Design, etc; Bad priority. On top of that, OWI has corporate agenda rather than letting developers do things for the game fans. It would not be a shocker that in near-future this game content will be relocated to Squad and this game to be unalived. Game was revived and killed within 1 year of the takeover. You won't see more than max 200 players in the weekends, and around 130-80 people on weekdays, sometimes even lower. It seems the company vision is to sacrifice the veteran/long-term players for new players, in the way of how they handle the game. New players come in, complain about complexity of the game, OWI makes the developers dumb down the game and change crucial core gameplay that was unique to the game originality. Veterans leave the game, new players join and quit, and OWI create either some big announcement/sale to bring in newer players to then rinse and repeat. No spine and loyalty towards long-standing players. Don't even get me started in their discord. Straight up woke gestapo stuff, with the biggest circle jerk group I have ever seen in a game's discord before. It is the same 15 people talking nonsense with a few new players here and there, and some players who returned to the game after a break from the game of 8 years. You will be scolded for bringing criticism to the developers, you might get banned, who knows. Reasoning? - The most watered down reasons with no follow-up. Imagine Kamala Harris answering questions during interviews in presidential campaign, but 100x worse - That's Moderators, Community QA, and Community Managers for you. You can suggest the most ideal complex solution to the game with years of experience of the game, and yet the developers will add in a suggestion of a week old player of nerfing tanks because they are too tanky. Fix logistics section and add in content? "No let's change it up so logistics section is now everything but logistics section, so now you should be simulating "Truck Simulator 2026", or you become some Black Ops guerilla warfare rambo group. Also like the idea instead of adding in complex infrastructure building with new bunkers, covers or any military buildings and just add in fake trees instead". The fake trees were not introduced to the game, it was mentioned as a good idea from the Discord Mod staff. Neither was any new gun emplacements or fortifications, just some damp re-skins. The developers said they had plans for logistics in 2024; Unfortunately it did not occur to us players that the plans was to restrict logistic section to the degree no one wants to play it properly anymore, no creativity, no fun, just straight pain. All seasoned logistic players has left already, and now developers are forced to dumb down that part of the game so that new players won't get verbally abused by friendly Squad Leaders, by giving that logistics responsibility to the rest of the team, alongside all other previous responsibilities the infantry sections have. The game overall was perfect the way it was first made, but with these new companies taking over development, it's all about visual, as all the mechanical core parts of the game is ruined. Post Scriptum (the original game) is still superior to both Squad 44, and HLL by miles. I can't recommend this game tho, as much as I used to love it and play most of my free time everyday on it, it is not the same game when I first got it, and I won't lie what it has become. Game is destined to die, we just don't know when, either by player count or by pulling the plug by OWI. Whatever it is, the management has not made this to be sustainable over time, so it is inevitable to happen. Personally I wished for a refund option after OWI took over, because my favorite game was butchered ways I could had not imagined, shockingly with the reputation that OWI have had with Squad and the success of that game. I suppose this is mildly better than Beyond The Wire, but is heading same way. Thanks for reading my review, and apologies for any English grammar mistakes. English is not my first, or second language.

[h1]No, Squad 44 or Post Scriptum is not dying.[/h1] [i]An honest review of the game and why I am recommending it.[/i] [i]V1.1 of the review[/i] [hr][/hr] [h2]The Gameplay[/h2] Since I am someone who is looking at a game's [b]gameplay[/b] first whilst considering its quality, I am naturally going to tackle this subject first. While Squad 44 is a First Person Shooter game, it emphasizes heavily on the communication, coordination, combat awareness that a Military Game can provide. In other words, no, you are not going to win because you have the most kills, but rather because you made sense of the chaos around you, you and your team, and took advantage of every opportunities that shown themselves during the battle. This alone is really satisfying. [i]"But wait? Why don't you play Hell Let Loose then? Isn't it the same?"[/i] Well no, definitely not, I am even arguing in favor of Squad 44 on the gameplay part (and as well in other aspects but we'll get back to it). [b]Why? Why am I asking this rhetorical question in the first place?[/b] Hell Let Loose is indubitably Squad 44's direct active competitor when it comes to WW2 Milsims, hence the comparison here. [b]Hell Let Loose is a game I would qualify as very linear:[/b] Each objective are devided in sectors, that implies a clear frontline, is this a good thing? Well it's boring, simply put; Opportunities for flanking are really restricted and predictable from the enemy. Hell Let Loose has too much of a Meta, hold this area, if you do not, you are bound to lose, and this is annoying. There are a lot of other points to be made here, as in gameplay superiority Squad 44 offers over Hell Let Loose, but this is a review of Squad 44, so let's not get ourselves lost. [i]If you want to know more about my views on Squad 44 vs Hell Let Loose, let me know in the comments.[/i] [hr][/hr] [h2]The art[/h2] [i]I include in this section sound design, visuals, music, etc...[/i] Squad 44 is a blessing to the ears, I mean it. No other games made me feel stimulated and immersed in the current action of the battlefield as this game, it is top notch. The MG42 sound especially takes me to another epoque, I can not stress this enough. Not to mention the tank shell ricocheting. As far as the visual goes, the game is gorgeous, the maps are beautiful and feel alive. On the topics of maps, they are really good; They offer a lot of point of interests, difference in elevations to play with, and landmarks that can be taken advantage of. Yes some of the building may feel empty, I never considered this as a problem however. The game features appealing music, but it is not its main focus however. [hr][/hr] [h2]The Community[/h2] So this is when the review tackles a bit of a problematic aspect, the main one I believe, the one that is cited by the negative reviews the most in my opinion. The Community is not bad per se, or toxic rather, but it is lacking in quantity: [b] There are times of the day in which the game is simply unplayable[/b] Due to a lack of player base, the game suffers from a chronic low state, in which no servers have enough players to play a full game, and is stuck in a "seeding" mode. This to me is the main problem of Squad 44. But really then, does that make it a bad game? I think it is a far stretch to think so. [hr][/hr] [h2]The Hope[/h2] This is section is a love letter to Squad 44, and a plea to the community, and interested buyers, to support the game by any means, or just by playing it even. Squad 44 deserve more love than it is currently getting, not by the developers, but by the community. I am optimistic that with good communication with the developers and the community, we can build a strong player base back up, and live a new era of Squad 44. [hr][/hr] [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Yes you can play Squad 44, and you should if you are even remotely interested in milsims, but in full honesty you won't be able to play whenever you want, that's the only issue that persists to me. I hope this review was helpful and satisfying to you. Let me know in the comments if you want to know more. Share your opinion in the comment too, I am interested! See you people on the frontline.

The Developers continue to make changes that no one in the player base has asked for and refuse to explain their actions coherently, I highly recommend not picking up this game in its current state.

>Download Squad 44 >Have a great match, team is communicating and completing objectives >Look at HLL playercount >"Hmm, many more players, must be better" >Get in match >Nobody talking >Can't bipod my FG42 >Can't freelook >No bayonet >Uninstall HLL and reinstall Squad 44 This game is so much better than HLL but its downfall is its playercount. Even still, the community I experienced here is far better, and I'd rather have 200 concurrent players who want to communicate and win the game rather than 3000 players who might as well be NPC's. If you are debating between the two, get this please.

This game used to be the pinnacle of tactical WWII shooters. Back when it was Post Scriptum, I had a smooth experience with constant 120–180 FPS. Even under heavy artillery fire, explosions, and intense combat, it never dropped below 90 FPS. It felt crisp, responsive, and professional. Now, under current development, it has become a technical disaster: Performance Decay: Currently, I’m only getting 90 FPS while idling on the shooting range—and even that is riddled with constant micro-stutters. Multiplayer Mess: As soon as I join a 100-player server, the game collapses. I am stuck at 30 FPS. In a hardcore shooter where every millisecond counts, 30 FPS with input lag is a death sentence. Broken Priorities: Instead of fixing the foundation, the devs keep pushing new content like maps and factions. What is the point of a new map if it runs like a slideshow? The Declaration of Failure: If the developers actually prioritized optimization and core engine fixes over fluff, this game would have 5 to 10 times the current player count. People want to play this, but they can't because it’s fundamentally broken. Final Warning: Stop adding content to a sinking ship. Fix the performance or this game will continue its death spiral until it’s eventually removed from the market. I cannot recommend buying this "slideshow" until the devs prove they care about playability more than just adding more maps. If you want to save the player base, here are the technical areas that need immediate attention over any new content: PSO Caching (Stutter Mitigation): Implement robust Pipeline State Object caching to prevent shader compilation stutters during gameplay. Shaders should be pre-compiled to ensure a smooth combat experience. Draw Call Bottlenecking & HLODs: The current number of Draw Calls is choking the CPU. You need to optimize HLODs (Hierarchical Level of Detail) and batch meshes more efficiently, especially on dense maps, to reduce the overhead. Game Thread Optimization: The game is heavily bottlenecked by the Game Thread (Single-core dependency). Calculations for animations, physics, and complex blueprints need to be offloaded to Worker Threads to utilize modern multi-core CPUs. Network Relevance & Replication: Optimize Net Relevance Distance. The client shouldn't be processing data for actors or players that are miles away. This would significantly reduce the CPU load in 100-player environments. Audio Engine Overhead: Streamline the audio channel management. During heavy artillery barrages, the UE4 audio system currently consumes too many resources. Implementing better sound culling is essential. Conclusion: I don't want to leave a negative review because I love the core of this game, but it needs to be playable. Please prioritize engine optimization over new content. Fix the foundation so we can enjoy the house.

I love Squad 44. It is genuinely one of my favorite WWII games I have ever played, which makes leaving a negative review frustrating. A lot of us fell in love with this game back when it was Post Scriptum around 2018. It has always had a smaller player base, but the foundation was there. The immersion, the tank combat, the sound design, the scale, the weapons, the vehicles, and the overall atmosphere are still some of the best you will find in a WWII shooter. The problem is not the game itself. The problem is the oversight and direction. Since Offworld Industries picked it up and rebranded it as Squad 44, there have been good ideas, but the execution has been rough. The Pacific maps were huge and a great addition in theory. There is an unbelievable amount of weapons and vehicles across each nation. The tank combat is still top notch, and when the game is firing on all cylinders, you will not find many WWII games that feel this immersive. But the biggest issue has never really been solved: no officially hosted servers. For a game with such a small player base, forcing the community to carry the entire server structure is absurd. Most of the time you are stuck playing on one or two community servers, and even those are not always fully populated. Offworld should have been able to capitalize on this game and grow it beyond a few hundred dedicated players, especially with the resources behind them now. That is what makes this so disappointing. Squad 44 is a gem. It has the bones of something incredible. But it desperately needs better direction, better oversight, and a team that actually understands what the player base wants. I still love this game, but I cannot recommend it in its current state.

Great game. It needs more marketing to increase player base and bring more people over from squad to finally start competing more with HLL.

At its peak this game was by far the best ww2 shooter on the market, unfortunately those years are gone and the current state of the game is a very loose version of life support, repeatedly poor prioritisation from the devs have left the game with a tiny community and the matches never play as they did in its golden age. RIP post scriptum you are missed

This game is pretty much dead. Theres only one server that has players enough to play that doesnt require mods, also I accidently team killed some toxic guy who flipped out and now i think im banned lol so the one guy thats admin in the only server that has more the 3 people can literally decide whether you get to play the game you paid for or not so no please dont spend your money. It was probably fun when it had alot of servers to choose from. The guy i tked also freaked out on people for throwing gernades at tanks so i dont feel bad. I played the same match for a couple hours after the guy freaked out so i think he went through all the trouble of going on some gooner discord to get me banned lol. I tried to play the game today and it says the server disconnected me. So dont end up like me go play a game thats alot more chill without dudes like this that has that much power over you and even the purchase you made.

To save the people who only read the first line time, don't buy this in its current state, it is a dead game. While I find this game more fun than its direct competitors, it has really regressed into simply a misery simulator. Which I suppose in that regard is quite on brand for the source material it is trying to cover. What remains of this dev team really needs to take a step back, bring out a whiteboard, and just write "is this actually fun?" on the top. Then work their way down through several of its core features from there. The best maps are those on the Western Front, the Pacific is a complete disaster show. One example is with the way you get caught on every little piece of foliage while sprinting. Getting caught on the odd hedgerow overgrowth in the Western maps is rare and occasional. You hop on Guadalcanal? Good luck even trying to Banzai charge when half the team is slowed to a snails pace because of an ankle high ficus. While the maps are massive, most of that space is empty and dead land with nothing to do but walk around. This causes teams to basically cluster around small points around the map, with rogue enemies and allies alike wandering around the woods aimlessly. This is another one of those games that will endlessly frustrate you as you are shot from random bushes and shrubbery with no hope of ever finding where the shot came from. Most maps need a complete overhaul, or perhaps a new game mode that actually makes players meet and compete head to head rather than every match being an immiseration competition between the worlds top 100 bush wookies. I'm saying this as someone as guilty of it as the next guy. This game has a lot going for it, but at the moment the only times I have fun are when I am playing with friends. So I can only recommend it to people with three or more friends who already have the game and are willing to set aside two hours to play with you. otherwise this game is not for you.