It's important to check on the entirety of settings and tweak them to your liking.
Spending decent amount of time on controls is highly advised. I'd reccommend changing your quality to as low as possible and lowering shadows as much as possible, for maximum visibility, and of course - performance.

FOV is to an extend a personal preference, long story short, it works like this :

LOW FOV - Limits how much of the surroundings you can see, everything appears closer to the camera, which in turn, can help you hit targets more consistently at longer ranges.

HIGH FOV - Expands your general horizontal field of view, thus allowing you to see more of your surroundings at the cost of targets in the distance being harder to hit

I personally like mine set at 80, since the game is pretty close-quarters, but your game, your choice.

I also highly reccommend enabling "display game info" in the gameplay section of settings, which gives you basic information on the game's performance, and your latency.


Nothing much to say about main menu, you can view your recent matches, visit leaderboards, your carreer profile, buy watches and wristbands in the shop, or read through the in-game manual that has some valuable info which you should read, especially about in-game rules.

Weapons

!!!MODIFY YOUR WEAPONS BEFORE YOU START PLAYING!!!
The preparation phase is only 30 seconds long so you won't have that much time to fully mod your weapon as a beginner. The 30 seconds should be used to plan out your approach, and swap gadgets (mostly swapping in/out NVGs and various other gadgets + changing your standard rail mods to IR lasers, if neccessary since those are compatible with NVGs).
When modding your weapons in the main menu, DONT FORGET TO HIT THE SAVE BUTTON, located at the bottom right of the screen, otherwise the changes you made might not actually carry over to the game.

RAIL MODIFICATIONS
• Steiner/Normal lasers - Help you to see where you're generally aiming, providing greater hip-fire control (Not reccomended whatsoever, since in co-op they are useless anyways and in multiplayer they WILL giveaway your position to the enemy players. Compatible with NVG's, however the enemy team WILL BE ABLE TO SEE YOUR LASER.
• Flashlights - Useful if you don't have NVgs, and MANDATORY for the T side, as they can easily blind CT's NVGs, and generally disrupt their vision. Important thing as of now - flashlights tend to clip through walls, doors and even floors resulting in giving away your position, so be wary of this.
• IR lasers - Useless without NVGs, and your only hope of actually aiming with your NVGs engaged. The laser only shows when you enable your NVG, and when aiming down the sight, you use the laser instead of your scope/iron sights.

FOREGRIPS - In stats they don't show any improvements on recoil, however, after some testing I found out that they help with recoil quite a bit - I might be biased and wrong but IMO they help, so, I would reccommend USING THEM.

SIGHTS
Down to your personal preference, remember that tapping ALT will zoom-in even with optics that don't have multiple zoom levels.

MUZZLES
• Suppresors - Decrease gunfire sound, recoil and damage, also hide muzzle flash. Optional, obviously reccommended for flankers, and more stealthy players.
• Compensators - Decrease recoil, decrease damage. Reccommended when you find yourself firing more full auto than semi and on SMG's.
• Flash Hiders - Hide muzzle flash, decrease damage less than suppresors and compensators. Not reccommended, but hey, you do you!

PADS - Don't reccommend using them whatsoever, they take the control of your laser from you and lock it in one of two options :
• ADS only - the laser is enabled only when you aim down sights, is disabled when in hip-fire mode.
• Inverse ADS - Only enables the laser while in hip-fire mode and disables it when you aim down sights.

Co-op in Zero Hour is a totally different experience from multiplayer and vice-versa. Being good at one doesn't necessarily mean you'll dominate at the other.
The pre-game preparation phase is generally the same for you as if you were playing multiplayer on the CT side. When it comes to equipment I do have a few reccommendations based on my personal experience.

Weapons

When it comes to weapons, it's a matter of personal preference in co-op and I reccommend using the weapons that you are comfortable with, and are able to safely one-tap the AI. Shotguns are an interesting choice - they allow you to break door handles and eliminate the need to kick out a door wedge, however they can be inconsistent at times, also if you stumble upon an AI holding an hostage with your shotgun in hand, well, you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥
• The Riot Shield if you plan on using it, be aware of the fact that you need to be aware of your teammate's position behind you, so that you won't block their line of wire and will be able to protect them from gunshots at the same time. ALWAYS CROUCH when clearing rooms - this covers your entire body and allows your teammates to shoot over you.

Equipment

Every piece of equipment has it's advantages, however, I highly reccomend the following combinations.
• Flashbang + C2 charge - The effect those items have on the AI is that they are more prone to GIVING UP TO YOU - thus resulting in more points being awarded at the end of the mission while also being able to interrogate the pacified AI, which gives you location of other enemy combatants, which is very useful on large or multi-level buildings for tracking down the last few of them. C2 charge allows you to breach doors with the added bonus of disorienting thsoe in the room, be careful however, if you stand too close to the door while the charge goes off, you're in for an unpleasant experience
• Flash + Flash
• NVG + Flash/C2 charge - Some of the AI do carry flashlights, making your life way harder, however, all AI reaction time in the dark is slightly lowered [UNCOMFIRMED, BASED ON PERSONAL BIAS]
DO NOT USE FRAGS - You might harm/kill the hostage, resulting in a tremendous point loss, also if a grenade kills any AI that hasn't fired a shot at you, or hasn't aimed at you, it WILL count as an unauthorised use of force, further reducing your final points being awarded. This brings me to the most important part of co-op

Unauthorised use of force

You can't just go in guns blasting, even though in some map scenarios it would be perfectly viable and legal, however, it is NOT. Before you shoot at any enemy combatant they need to :
• A) Aim at you
OR
• B) Actively shoot at you
OR
• C) Refuse to give up after disorienting them with a flash/c2 charge or an explosion
When it comes to UUF (Unauthorised use of force) it can be janky from time to time. For example combatants that previously killed one of your squadmates will give up afterwards from time to time, and shooting them is a case of UUF. Shooting enemy combatants disoriented by a flash or an explosion almost always counts as an UUF, even if they shot at you beforehand. Also you need to wait until the animation of being disoriented completely ends to shoot them, since that's when they will decide if they want to give up or not.When entering a room or any corridor, any new part of the map/building that you know the AI might be in - be sure to callout to them by pressing X. This will notify them of your location, however there's a chance they will comply and put down their guns and surrender to you.

Execution

Don't make things hard for yourself. If the building has peekable windows from the outside - rapel and peek them.

Upon entering the building, clear out your entry point and the stairs as soon as possible before advancing. Have one person cover your back, so roaming AI won't be able to easily flank you.

Clear one room at a time if possible, One floor at a time as well. If you need to cover multiple angles after going through a door, it's best to look for an alternate way of entrance, or to use a flash/c2 to give you an edge by disorienting the enemy. If neither are available, you'll need 2 people minimum, who will both watch their own respective side, covering each other.

Same applies for going down hallways. One player should be on the left, while the other is on the right. The right side player watches the left corners, while the left side player watches the corners on the right side.

Don't escort the hostages out as soon as you find them - clean the whole building first so that you don't have to worry about running into stray AI. Also, escorting the hostages isn't the only win condition. You have to restore order - all enemy combatants have to be either dead, or secured after giving up.

DONT FORGET TO PICK UP THE ENEMY WEAPONS - extra points are awarded for collecting them.

Be wary of AI laying under the beds or on rescue beds - Notably on Terror House and in Abandoned Hospital


Most of these things are common sense, however it's not bad to mention them.

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