Delta Force
Developer/publisher TiMi Studio Group (TiMi J3 Studio) Format PC Release Out now
Delta Force feels as confused as its piecemeal launch. With an indefinite open beta effectively forming the 1.0 release of its PvP portion in December, we’re just now receiving the PvE campaign that was promised all along. The result is an awkward marriage of two different games: a twitchy, near-future Battlefield 4-like with a hero shooter element, and a tense, (comparatively) grounded co-op romp through ’90s Somalia. With around a 40-year difference between the Battle of Mogadishu and the nascent Third World War presented here, the only real unifying factor is the sense of frustration they produce.
The campaign has a split identity, as an adaptation of both the movie Black Hawk Down (replete with footage from the film) and the 2003 shooter Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (which was based on the book). Trying to span the gap, its balance is often shaky – oscillating, for example, between effortless horde shooting and torturously difficult room-clearing sieges. Indeed, the first mission divides our time in exactly that way. We start out blasting anonymous tank-top-wearing people in the back as they flee combat, before a thankless, grinding assault upon a two-storey office complex.