Before trying to actually play : As far as it goes the game is of waiting an hour to join a server and praying that it doesn't crash for no reason, and if it does then waiting perhaps 1 more hour because your place in queue is not saved. No matter how great your PC is, unless it is straight up maxed out in everything, you'll encounter this multiple time after every so connection to the decent servers. That's SQUAD regular squad experience before you even get to join. (Despite me having pretty good PC, I encounter this issue frequently despite me having very good performance in 2K resolution inside the game)
In-game : Performance wise even in the game it is totally not great, probably how it goes with every single UE5 game. The game is terribly optimized and only things that makes it stand out are SFX and VFX in terms of looks. Other than that it's just garbage photorealistic graphics that we see in every single UE5 game. That can be replicated by a freelancer from who knows where.
- Despite the whole idea behind game is kind of mixing realism and in-game communication that you'd find in an arcade game. The game falls short on realism aspect and on the communication part is heavily dependent on the server that you are in. As far as it goes, there are only few servers where people properly communicate and community already knows that and there are queues as large as 30+ people waiting to join the server. Soo, good luck joining that in less than an hour. (Or pay another chunk of money to just get a queue-skip)
- Getting bit towards realism, SQUAD is a realistic shooter where .50cal bullets can't go through 0.1 cm wide piece of wood. Hell, not even a 125mm AP shells from a tank. It's a type of game where any kind of vehicle can get stuck on any kind of surface or flip out nowhere. This is especially crazy on maps where there's just rocks and dead tree branches lying around. Be it tracked or wheeled vehicles they all perform bad. Whole vehicle system is just not there.
- Gameplay itself on the infantry is solely dependent on the Squad Leader, which leads 9 people in itself. If you do not get a decent squad lead, in this game you will not have great gameplay and most likely not touch the game at all. After that it becomes straight linear gameplay, due to map designs, the great HAB areas where infantry spawns is already known beforehand and opposite teams try to get there before enemy. Then it's just infantry trying to ram through each other. Then again usage of APCs by the infantry is completely useless in urban maps because you simply can't drive there. Be it wheeled or tracked you get stuck or flip on literally anything. And the higher calliber gun which is supposed to give you an advantage doesn't work properly as I mentioned due to the fact that they do not go through anything. You could give a guy a headshot and he could be revived again same with direct grenade shrapnel. Some mods actually do it way better with infantry weapons than the vanilla, like why is an army soldier swinging around a weapon like it is 100kg.
- Now onto Armored gameplay, similarly persistent issues with vehicles getting stuck onto nothing, or literal tracks falling through the terrain and vehicle becomes immovable. High caliber guns not being able to penetrate walls, trees, little bit of ground. You also have very bad stabilization on any kind of vehicle that has it, it barely works properly. Making you extremely vulnerable to the infantry that can respawn every 20 seconds. Especially with drones and IED bikes rolling around (Which somehow accelerates 0 to 105 in 1 second and the guy won't fall off if he crashed into something.) Most of the rounds do not have great radius of damage. As it goes the only round which performs as supposed to is a fragmentation rounds which can at least damage infantry if falls BIT close (Even they can get stuck in tree leaves textures, I'm not even gonna speak about incendiary rounds or direct RPG shots which can be survived).
- Map variation in Squad is also meh, considering that a lot of the old maps are unoptimized and still have trees floating in the air. Every single layer is known beforehand, where to go and what to do is almost predetermined. Majority of the maps have no in-between, if it is an urban map that will stay like that! It is heavily dependent on the infantry and armor will not be able to act as it is supposed to act. Similarly there are armor dominant maps, which will revolve around armor gameplay as they are just open deserts.
- But primary issue with Squad still I believe is frequent crashes, and if you are not able to fix the direct cause of the crash at least there should be mechanisms which would help a person not wait another 50 minutes in the line to join the server. Today I spent 2 hours trying to join a server but crashed twice and had to wait in 30 people line 2 times and then played 2 hours comfortably. This issue persisted despite doing what the developers told me would fix the issue.
