Enlisted Review: The Best WWII Squad Shooter Nobody Talks About Enough

Enlisted has always been the WWII shooter I keep coming back to and never quite know how to recommend without a footnote. On its best day it does something no other free infantry FPS pulls off, and on its worst it reminds you exactly who publishes it. After returning to it through the Reinforced relaunch, I am more convinced than ever that the good outweighs the frustrating, but only just, and only if you know what you are signing up for.

The pitch is simple and brilliant. You do not control one soldier; you control a squad of up to nine, directly steering one while the rest follow orders, and you can hot-swap to any of them the instant your current body drops. Die, and you are not sent to a respawn screen and a loading loop; you snap into the next man in your squad and keep fighting. It changes the entire texture of a WWII shooter, and it is the reason Enlisted is worth your attention.

Gameplay: one death is never the end

That squad mechanic is the whole game, and it is fantastic. Getting cut down by a machine gunner used to mean a trip to the menu; here it means dropping into your rifleman two meters back and immediately trying to flank the position that just killed you. Battles feel relentless and dense because the map is never suddenly empty of you. It rewards aggression, tactical thinking about which soldier to leave where, and a kind of chess-like squad management most shooters never attempt.

Combine that with genuinely large battles across historical theaters, Normandy, Berlin, Stalingrad, Tunisia, the Pacific, and Enlisted generates atmosphere that bigger-budget shooters routinely miss. Bolt-action rifles crack, tanks grind through rubble, aircraft strafe overhead, and the AI squadmates fill out the chaos so a match feels populated even when the human count is modest. The gunplay itself is weighty and satisfying, favoring deliberate engagements over twitch reflexes.

It is not flawless. The AI teammates are useful but dim, and there are moments where a bot squadmate wanders into a wall while you are trying to hold a point. Vehicle balance can swing games, and a well-flown plane or a heavy tank in the wrong match can feel oppressive. But the core loop, push, die, respawn into your own squad, push again, is one of the most quietly innovative things in the free shooter space.

Content and progression: the grind is the catch

Enlisted is generous with content. Multiple fronts, a steady stream of squads, weapons, and vehicles to unlock, and enough historical breadth that you can specialize in a campaign that appeals to you. The research and upgrade system gives you a long ladder to climb, and for the first stretch that climb is engaging.

Then the grind reveals itself. Progression is heavily gated, and without a premium account or targeted purchases, unlocking the squads and gear you actually want takes a real investment of hours. The game hands you research tokens and daily rewards to keep you logging in, and to be fair, that structure is more honest than a pure paywall. But there is no pretending it away: the pace is tuned to make premium look attractive, and the higher you climb, the slower the free lane gets.

Where Enlisted earns credit is that it is not egregiously pay-to-win in the way some free shooters are. Premium squads and vehicles are strong, and they show up in matchmaking in ways that can feel unfair, but skill and smart squad play still decide most fights. You are buying time and convenience more than raw victory. Compared to some of its stablemates, this is a comparatively fair economy, which is a low bar the game clears by a comfortable margin.

Tech and the Reinforced relaunch

The move to Steam as Enlisted: Reinforced was supposed to be the game's big consolidation moment, and it was, memorably, a mess. The early-access launch drew immediate pushback over technical problems and player dissatisfaction, and sales were paused the same day. That rocky rollout is worth naming, because it captured the tension at the heart of Enlisted: an excellent game repeatedly tripped up by the business decisions around it.

Since then it has stabilized. The client runs well, looks good for a free title, and scales across a range of hardware. It currently sits at a "Mostly Positive" reputation on Steam across tens of thousands of reviews, which feels about right, a game people genuinely enjoy while grumbling about how it is monetized. The community is committed, the matches fill, and the underlying engine handles the scale of battle with confidence.

Who is it for?

Enlisted is for the WWII-shooter fan who wants something structurally different from the Battlefield and Call of Duty template, and who is willing to treat progression as a long-term hobby rather than a weekend sprint. If the squad mechanic clicks for you, and it clicked hard for me, there is nothing else quite like it, and it costs nothing to try.

If you bounce off grind, or you want a level playing field the moment you install, temper your expectations. The path to a competitive loadout is long, and premium squads will occasionally spoil a match.

Verdict

Enlisted is the most genuinely inventive free WWII shooter on the market, carried by a squad-command system that reframes what death and respawning mean in an FPS. Its scale, atmosphere, and comparatively fair economy make it easy to love; its grind and its clumsy Reinforced relaunch make it hard to love unconditionally. I keep coming back anyway, and that says most of what you need to know.

Score: 7.6 / 10 — A standout idea and a great shooter, wrapped in a grind you have to make peace with.