Enlisted PC Review: Command a Squad, Not Just a Soldier

Most military shooters want you to feel like a hero. Enlisted wants you to feel like a commander who happens to be standing in the mud. It hands you a squad instead of a single soldier, drops you onto a battlefield that is busy with dozens of other squads, and then lets the chaos of a Second World War engagement unfold around you. It is free to play, it runs on PC, and it does something that few multiplayer shooters even attempt: it makes the army feel bigger than any one person in it.

The Pitch: One Player, One Squad, One Very Loud Battlefield

Enlisted is a squad-based multiplayer shooter set during the Second World War, developed by Darkflow Software and published by Gaijin Entertainment, the studio best known for its vehicle combat series. The core idea is easy to explain and surprisingly hard to find elsewhere. Instead of playing as one character who respawns after every death, you control a squad of soldiers. You move and shoot as one member, and when that soldier falls, you take over the next one in the squad. The fight does not stop, your position does not reset, and a single bad moment does not wipe out your involvement in the match.

This has a profound effect on how the game feels. In a conventional shooter, death is a punishment: a timer, a loading screen, a trip back to the spawn. In Enlisted, death is a handoff. You lose a soldier, but you keep your momentum, and that changes how you think about risk. You can push an objective with a little more aggression, because the cost of failure is a single soldier rather than your entire presence. You can also build a plan around your squad, deciding who carries the machine gun, who holds the sniper rifle, and who is the expendable member you will send through the door first.

Around you, the battle is populated by other players and their squads, along with the pressure of objectives, tickets, and reinforcements. The scale is the hook. A typical match feels less like a duel and more like a small piece of a much larger operation, and the best moments come when a coordinated push, a well-timed armored advance, and a surprise flank all land on the same objective at once.

“Enlisted is not a game about being the best soldier on the field. It is a game about being the best officer.”

Your Squad Is Your Toolkit

The squad system is the heart of the experience, and it is deeper than it first appears. Squads come in different types, and each one is built around a role. Rifle squads give you a dependable, well-rounded group of infantry. Assault squads lean toward submachine guns and close-quarters violence. Machine gunners provide suppressive fire and hold lanes. Engineers build defenses and support positions. Snipers pick off targets from distance. Radio operators call in support, and specialist crews handle tanks and aircraft.

The strategic layer comes from how you assemble these squads. Before a battle, you choose which squads to bring, and each squad has its own weapons, its own members, and its own strengths. A loadout built around sturdy rifle squads will play very differently from one that favors fast, aggressive assault units, and a mixed approach gives you flexibility at the cost of specialization. Over time, you learn which combinations suit your style, and that learning curve is one of the game’s quiet pleasures.

Within a squad, every soldier can have their own equipment. Weapons can be upgraded with attachments, soldiers can be given different kit, and some of your squad members will be better suited to specific tasks. You will quickly develop favorites: the machine gunner who has saved you more than once, the sniper whose steady hands have turned a stalemate, the veteran with the best rifle in the group. The system is not trying to simulate a deep character drama, but it gives you just enough attachment to care when someone falls.

It is worth noting that the soldiers you do not control are guided by artificial intelligence, and this is both a strength and a weakness. At its best, the AI follows you sensibly, takes cover, and contributes meaningful firepower. At its worst, it can behave a bit stiffly, sometimes bunching up, sometimes ignoring a threat that a human would have spotted at once. It is good enough to make the squad idea work, but not so good that it replaces your attention. You are still the one making the decisions.

The Fronts: A Tour of the War

Enlisted organizes its content into campaigns that cover different theaters of the Second World War, including the Eastern Front, the Western Front, the North African desert, and the Pacific. Each campaign has its own factions, its own maps, and its own arsenal, and each one gives you a slightly different flavor of the conflict.

The Eastern Front campaign is a natural starting point for many players. It pits German forces against Soviet troops in the brutal fighting around Moscow, and it offers a strong sense of the war’s grim, snowbound character. The Western Front campaigns, which include the invasion of Normandy and later battles, swap in a different set of weapons and settings, with hedgerows, villages, and beaches replacing the frozen fields of the east. The desert campaign brings a different tempo, with open ground, long sightlines, and a very different relationship between infantry and armor. The Pacific campaign adds yet another flavor, with its own factions, its own weapons, and the unique dynamics of jungle and island fighting.

The maps themselves are a highlight. They are large, varied, and designed around the flow of combat, with a mix of open fields, dense urban zones, and fortified positions. A good map in Enlisted tells a story: the ruined village where the defenders have dug in, the open approach that every attacker dreads, the ridge that offers a commanding view at the cost of exposure. Because the battles are driven by objectives, the maps also tend to produce natural hotspots, places where the fight is always at its fiercest.

Game modes follow the familiar rhythm of capturing and holding objectives, with attackers pushing forward and defenders trying to hold the line. The structure is straightforward, but the scale and the squad mechanics give it more texture than the description suggests. A hard-fought battle can swing back and forth for many minutes, with each side taking ground, losing it, and fighting to take it back.

Moment-to-Moment Combat: Heavy, Lethal, and Honest

The shooting in Enlisted is built around weight and consequence. Weapons feel grounded in their historical roles. A bolt-action rifle demands patience and precision. A submachine gun is a fast, close-range tool. A heavy machine gun rewards setup and discipline. The period-accurate arsenal is a pleasure to explore, with a great variety of rifles, submachine guns, machine guns, and specialist weapons belonging to the various factions, and each weapon has a distinct personality.

Lethality is high. A well-placed shot can drop a soldier quickly, and that creates a tense, careful rhythm in which positioning and awareness matter more than reflexes alone. You will not survive by charging blindly across open ground. You will survive by using cover, moving between positions, and trusting your squad to support you. The game rewards patience, but it also rewards decisiveness, and the best players learn to balance the two.

The combat is also enriched by the sheer amount of battlefield activity. Explosions, suppressive fire, and the constant movement of other squads create an atmosphere that feels genuinely chaotic. At times the noise is overwhelming, and the sense of being a small part of a much larger fight is one of the game’s defining strengths. When a barrage lands near your position, you feel it, and when you finally break through a defended building, the relief is real.

Some of the mechanics reward careful play. Reloading, ammunition management, and the use of grenades and other equipment all matter, and the game punishes carelessness. At the same time, the learning curve is manageable, and newcomers can contribute meaningfully without mastering every system. The best advice is to play slowly at first, learn how your weapons behave, and gradually build up your confidence.

“A good push in Enlisted feels like conducting an orchestra where every instrument is loud and slightly out of tune.”

Engineers, Fortifications, and the Art of Digging In

One of the most satisfying and underrated aspects of Enlisted is its building system. Engineers can construct a range of fortifications and support structures, from rally points that let your squad respawn closer to the action, to defensive emplacements, ammunition supplies, and barriers that shape the flow of the battle. The result is a layer of strategy that most shooters lack.

In practice, this means that the battlefield changes as the match progresses. A defending team can fortify a key building, string up obstacles, and create strongpoints that attackers must work to overcome. An attacking team can build forward positions to maintain pressure and keep reinforcements flowing. Because players can place these structures wherever the situation demands, the game rewards foresight, and a well-prepared position can swing the outcome of a fight.

It also makes the engineer one of the most valuable squad types, even though the role is less glamorous than the sniper or the machine gunner. A team that includes good engineers will often outlast a team that does not, and a single well-placed rally point can keep a push alive through a rough patch. For players who enjoy supporting roles and thinking beyond the next firefight, this is a deeply rewarding corner of the game.

Armor and Aircraft: The Heavy Hitters

Enlisted is not just an infantry game. Tanks, armored vehicles, and aircraft all play a role, and they can dramatically change the tone of a fight. A tank rolling down a street transforms the tactical situation, forcing infantry to adapt, find cover, and coordinate anti-armor responses. Aircraft, whether fighters or bombers, add another dimension, striking from above and forcing everyone on the ground to keep an eye on the sky.

Because these assets are tied to specific squads, using them is a deliberate choice rather than a default. If you bring a tank crew, you are committing to a different style of play, one with its own risks and rewards. Vehicle combat is distinct from infantry fighting, and mastering it takes time. The experience is a useful reminder that Enlisted wants you to think like a commander, deciding which tool to bring to which fight.

The interplay between infantry and vehicles can be thrilling. A coordinated armored push, supported by infantry clearing buildings and engineers building forward positions, is one of the most satisfying experiences the game offers. Conversely, an unsupported tank can become an easy target, a lesson that many players learn the hard way. The balance between these elements is not always perfect, and vehicles can occasionally feel overly dominant or frustratingly vulnerable depending on the situation, but the overall effect is a battlefield with texture and variety.

Progression, Economy, and the Free-to-Play Question

Enlisted is free to play, and any honest review has to discuss what that means in practice. The game uses a progression system built around campaigns, soldier and squad upgrades, and currencies earned through play. You unlock new weapons, squads, and equipment over time, and the sense of progress is a major part of the long-term appeal. The satisfaction of upgrading a favorite squad and finally getting your hands on a coveted weapon is real.

The model also includes optional purchases and premium content, and this is where the experience becomes more complicated. Some players find the progression pace slow, and the presence of paid options can create a perception that spending money accelerates your advancement. Whether this feels fair depends on your patience, your expectations, and how much you enjoy the process of earning things gradually. The game is playable, and rewarding, without spending money, but it is also clearly designed to encourage purchases, and the grind can feel steep at times.

Our advice is simple. Treat the game as a long-term hobby rather than a sprint. Focus on the squads and weapons you enjoy rather than chasing every unlock, and take advantage of the free content before deciding whether any purchase is worthwhile. If you find yourself having fun, it may be worth supporting the developers, but there is no requirement to do so. As with any live-service title, the details of the economy can change over time, so it is worth checking the current state of the game before you commit.

The key point is that skill and teamwork still matter enormously. A well-coordinated squad with modest equipment can defeat a poorly played squad with better gear, and the satisfaction of winning a fight on skill alone is a reminder of why the game works so well at its core.

Presentation on PC: Grit, Grime, and Noise

Visually, Enlisted does a good job of conveying the look and feel of the era. The environments are detailed and atmospheric, from muddy fields and shattered villages to desert outposts and tropical beaches. Lighting and weather add to the mood, with smoke, fire, and dust making the battlefield feel alive. Character models and weapons are well realized, and the overall presentation has a gritty, grounded quality that suits the subject matter.

The game is not the most cutting-edge title in terms of raw graphical fidelity, but it benefits from a strong art direction and a well-optimized engine. On PC, it offers a range of graphical settings, allowing players to tune performance to their hardware. Many players with mid-range systems can enjoy a smooth experience, though the busiest battles can still stress weaker machines, and it is worth adjusting settings to find a comfortable balance between visuals and frame rate.

The audio design is a standout. Gunfire cracks and echoes across the battlefield, explosions rattle your speakers, and the distant sounds of other fights create a convincing sense of scale. Voice lines, ambient noise, and the clatter of vehicles all contribute to a believable soundscape. Playing with a good pair of headphones is strongly recommended, both for the atmosphere and for the practical benefit of hearing where threats are coming from.

As with any online game, the quality of your experience also depends on your connection and on the health of the servers. Matchmaking is generally quick, and the game benefits from a large player base. Because it is a live-service title, updates, balance changes, and new content arrive regularly, so the state of the game can shift between visits. We suggest checking recent patch notes if you have not played in a while.

Community, Teamwork, and the Social Layer

Enlisted is a game that rewards cooperation. While you can enjoy it alone, the experience deepens when you play with others who share your goals. Communication, whether through text, voice, or simple coordinated actions, can transform a chaotic fight into a well-organized assault. A group of friends who have learned to work together can accomplish things that no individual player could.

The community is a mixed bag, as is the case with most online shooters. There are plenty of friendly, helpful players who enjoy teaching newcomers, and there are also the usual frustrations that come with competitive multiplayer. The best approach is to find a group you enjoy playing with and to lean on the wealth of community guides and videos that explain the game’s systems in detail.

The depth of the game also means that there is always something new to learn. Whether it is the best way to use a particular weapon, a clever fortification layout, or a strategy for a specific map, the community continues to share knowledge, and that collective expertise is a valuable resource for anyone looking to improve.

What Held Us Back

For all its strengths, Enlisted has real flaws. The AI-controlled squad members are serviceable but not brilliant, and they can occasionally behave in ways that break immersion. The progression system, while rewarding, can feel slow, and the monetization may frustrate players who prefer a more straightforward experience. Balance between factions, weapons, and vehicles is a perennial challenge, and not every match feels perfectly fair.

The game can also be overwhelming for newcomers. The number of squad types, weapons, and systems can feel daunting, and the early hours may involve some confusion. A little patience goes a long way, but the onboarding could be clearer. Some players may also find the pace slower than that of a typical arcade shooter, especially if they prefer constant, high-intensity action.

Finally, as a live-service game, Enlisted will continue to change. Features, balance, and content evolve over time, and what we describe here is a snapshot rather than a final word. We encourage readers to check current information, and to approach the game with an understanding that it is a work in progress that keeps growing.

Who Should Enlist

If you enjoy tactical team shooters, historical settings, and the feeling of being part of a large-scale battle, Enlisted is easy to recommend, especially given its price of free. It is a particularly good fit for players who like thinking about loadouts, roles, and strategy, and who enjoy the long-term satisfaction of building a collection of squads and weapons. If you prefer fast, twitchy gameplay or a tightly scripted campaign, you may find it less appealing.

It is also an excellent choice for groups of friends. The squad structure and objective-driven battles create natural opportunities for coordination, and the shared experience of a hard-fought match is exactly what makes multiplayer games memorable. Because the game is free, it is also a low-risk way to try something different, with no financial commitment required to find out whether it suits you.

The Depplo Verdict

Enlisted is one of the most distinctive multiplayer shooters on PC, and its core idea, a squad you command rather than a single soldier you play, is genuinely inspired. It transforms the rhythm of a match, softens the sting of death, and gives you a reason to think like an officer instead of a lone gunman. Add in a large-scale battlefield, a lovingly assembled arsenal, and a building system that lets you reshape the fight as it unfolds, and you have an experience that stands apart from the crowd.

It is not without flaws. The AI is imperfect, the economy can feel grindy, and the learning curve asks for patience. But these issues are outweighed by the strength of the central concept and the sheer fun of a well-fought battle. For anyone who has ever wanted a shooter that rewards planning, teamwork, and a little bit of historical imagination, Enlisted is an excellent choice, and it costs nothing to find out.

Pick your squad, dig in, and keep your head down. The war is waiting.

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