Recent reviews by Strm.Menges

Update: As of 11/21/23 --- Quite literally the gaming industry's equivalent of a 99 yard, 4th down Hail Mary touchdown in the last 10 seconds of overtime just happened. Not even kidding that this game has now resurrected from the dead. If you haven't heard already, the loooong asked for acquisition of PS by OWI (Squad Devs) is finally officially and they've already pushed an update opening the game to 100 man servers. They've announced they are not only putting OWI devs onto the game to restart development and renovation, but they've hired former devs/community leaders to moderate and the extremely dedicated and lovable mod developers as well as full time devs. The future is bright for PS once again; in good faith I won't change my review below, but let me tell you that it doesn't matter who you are- NOW is a GREAT TIME to get back into PS.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not going to spend a lot of time writing a review for this game like I initially was. Even if my playtime doesn't really show it, I've been engrained with this game and the community since it was a Squad mod in 2016, and I have been playing relentlessly since 2019. The past year of this game has shown me that the game's development arc has not just stagnated but regressed: I would rather play this game back the way it was in 2019 then play it now.

As for the game's current state, the Periscope Games lead developer has fired/laid off the entire team with no warning, three days after Christmas, one day after a weekend/Christmas sale and this was supposed to be right before the (presumably) final major content update which would not have just added a new faction and map, but also fix the absolutely awful lighting that has plagued this game since the engine upgrade, along with a slew of other QoL fixes people continue to have been *begging* for since Day 1. This event has garnered ABSOLUTELY ZERO FEEDBACK OR CLARIFICATION from the remaining 2-3 people who consist of the studio (including the lead) who have similarly not responded to third party content creators who are being openly betrayed by the studio in regards to their deals/agreements pertaining to content integration and release.

It's time to finally close the casket on this game. I've tried my best to stay into it far longer than I could. I don't pub games I don't enjoy, and I haven't enjoyed pubbing this game in a very long time. One step forwards, two steps back is how this game has always operated....at least since Chapter 2 in my opinion. The truth is, I believe the lead's decision way back in 2020 to copy HLL's Normandy theater and essentially copy/paste Band of Brothers into the game (something nobody asked for) making them stray from their original mission of portraying lesser common and constantly brushed over theaters of WWII was what truly did this game in. If you look at the Steam charts, you'll see I am right. The Armor Overhaul, while very important, was no where near as fleshed out as promised near as realistic as could be made within the source code for OWI Engine/UE4. And the engine upgrade was outright disastrous and that's what saw the largest amount of players leave the game. Take all of these things combined and add it to the 7-year perpetual reality that the devs have completely ignored bug fixes/suggestions that the overwhelming majority of the community supported, or even went further and told people that their suggestion/bug fix isn't a priority and/or shouldn't be taken seriously because it doesn't align with their "vision" of the game (something very vague that is never extrapolated).

If you're absolutely brand new to this game- you might get at most 50-100 hours of fun out of this...and that's just if you're a hardcore dedicated WWII realism player. Otherwise, this game is a completely watered-down Squad with all of the negatives, none of the positives, and WWII reskins put over it. The only thing I would recommend across the board is check out the third party content from people like Chapter Mercury, Shifting Sands, and Post Scriptum Realism Mod. Only modders can save this game, and that's if by the grace of God they can pull a miracle off with the tools left to them by PG who never really appreciated them in the first place. This game will survive if, and only if, a new decision maker is placed in charge, with better quality output and the integration of proper third party content.

Woops, left my PC on and evidently played for days

Definitely a great game. One of the best Star Wars games now, and of my childhood. The only downside to this game is that it cliffhangs so hard, and leaves the story in between missions as completely lackluster. This can be remedied by reading the Republic Commando books by Karen Traviss.

Also, other downside is that there isn't a second one yet.

If you've played this game a bit before, try it again with the ARC Trooper mod. Adds some small missions and a Battle of Jabiim map that's pretty interesting.

Cool ass game, freals. It kind of reminded me a little of Fallout and a lot of Quake, but in a way it also felt like Borderlands (which I haven't played). Free roam but quests and was awesome.