It’s hard to imagine how XCOM 2, Firaxis’ peerless tactics game, could possibly be any more nerve-racking. But what if, instead of turn-based, it all took place in real time? What if you had to make all of those life and death decisions on the fly? After five years of early-access development, one brutally realistic RTS answers those questions. Combining the ground-level, moment-to-moment combat of Company of Heroes with the milsim aesthetics of Arma, it’s already accumulated near-flawless reviews, and now it’s finally deployed into 1.0. This is Door Kickers 2.
From the aptly named Killhouse Games, Door Kickers 2 ditches action points, turns, and map hexes in favor of immediate, real-time combat. Played from a top-down perspective, it looks like a hybrid of XCOM, CoH, and Hotline Miami, but gameplay-wise it feels like a committed military simulation game.
Commanding a team of special forces soldiers, the campaign challenges you to think fast, improvise strategies, and make effective use of breaching charges, night-vision goggles, and fire-and-maneuver to complete objectives in close-quarters combat. Deploy machine-gunners to lay down suppressing fire. Blast through walls with explosives to get the drop on the hostiles within. It’s an RTS game at the microcosmic scale, where a single errant decision can get your entire squad killed.
The online co-op mode supports four players, each of whom can bring their own squad. You can also test your mettle with the dreaded Iron Man setting, as made famous by XCOM – any soldiers you lose in battle are gone for good, and if everyone dies, that’s game over. Originally released into early access back in 2020, over the last five years, Door Kickers 2 has earned a glowing ‘overwhelmingly positive’ rating on Steam – of the almost 8,000 user reviews posted so far, 95% are positive.
And now, today, Monday February 10, Door Kickers 2 has finally reached its 1.0 launch. If you want to try it for yourself, it’s available for $24.99 / £20.99. Just head here.
Otherwise, you might want to play some of the best strategy games, or maybe the best war games available on PC.
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