Delta Force is an awkward marriage of Battlefield and Call of Duty, but every once in awhile it all clicks

GamesFPSDelta Force: Hawk OpsDelta Force is an awkward marriage of Battlefield and Call of Duty, but every once in awhile it all clicksWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

Delta Force has an unlearning curve. Despite all pretenses of simulation, the new FPS (which just dropped the subtitle “Hawk Ops” from its name on Tuesday) is a twitchy arcade shooter through and through, which often leaves it at odds with its nakedly Battlefield-inspired maps. I came away from Delta Force with more of an appreciation for Battlefield’s sense of heft and weight and Call of Duty’s now characteristic lack of restraint.

It’s a mostly elegant, sometimes uneven fusion of both ends of the modern military shooter. Weapons boast the exaggerated visual recoil and laser accuracy felt in Call of Duty, and maps feel almost patently lifted from Battlefield 4. Those elements are both key to their respective games, but it’s immediately clear just how much less cohesive in vision and design Delta Force feels than CoD or Battlefield.

TakeModern Warfare 2’s Ground War mode, for example. Recognizing that Call of Duty’s gunplay and killstreak loop is best suited to dense terrain, Infinity Ward stitched together chunks of iconic deathmatch maps into one cohesive area where the battle plays out. That focused density is absent in Delta Force, where maps often feel empty, with awkwardly long sightlines ill-suited to weapons so accurate, so easy to handle.

Delta Force Hawk Ops - Havoc Warfare Gameplay | No Commentary - YouTubeWatch On

Delta Force Hawk Ops - Havoc Warfare Gameplay | No Commentary - YouTube

Making inroads into the town sees you fighting street to street, alley to alley, house to house. It’s in the back two-thirds of this map that Delta Force’s level design actually compliments its gameplay.

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(Image credit: Team Jade)(Image credit: Team Jade)(Image credit: Team Jade)(Image credit: Team Jade)(Image credit: Team Jade)(Image credit: Team Jade)(Image credit: Team Jade)(Image credit: Team Jade)(Image credit: Team Jade)

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

(Image credit: Team Jade)

Delta Force

The freedom to pair any weapon loadout with any class creates a lot of interesting build possibilities beyond tailoring to just one’s preferences—Luna, the sniper class equipped with an enemy-revealing reconnaissance bow and portable respawn marker, makes for a versatile close quarters defense specialist when equipped with an SMG instead of a rifle, easily tracking targets through walls and ambushing them.

Delta Force also has a PvE extraction mode called Hazard Ops, which I didn’t spend too much time with. Hazard Ops will doubtlessly shine when played with friends, but as of the current alpha test, frequent disconnects and spotty hit detection undermine what is supposed to be a tight, tense, high stakes experience.

There’ll be a campaign at launch, too, interwoven with real footage (and presumably the narrative) of the 2001 Ridley Scott film “Black Hawk Down.” It’s a bizarre connection to a film that has not aged particularly well and confusingly a remake of the campaign to 2003 shooter Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, which PC Gamer’s contemporary review called “more exhausting than exhilarating.” The early ’90s setting for the campaign is especially at odds with Delta Force’s near-future aesthetic in multiplayer, which is set in 2035.

Attempting to stand evenly in the arenas of both Battlefield and Call of Duty leavesDelta Forcea shooter with an identity crisis, failing to reach the heights of either. Still, it’s a promising F2P option launching into early access this winter, with a long road ahead before 1.0—if its contemporaries keep fumbling their yearly releases, there may be a place for Delta Force in between them.

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