Before video games followed in the footsteps of movies like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down to start giving real-world conflicts the blockbuster treatment, they had a whole different approach to shooters set in the real world.
The late 90s were a golden age of tactical first-person shooters. There was Rainbow Six, of course, there was the SWAT series, and there was Delta Force, all offering their own twists on squad-based combat with high stakes, freedom of approach, and scenarios where one bullet can change everything.
Now, the last of the above-mentioned bunch, Delta Force, is getting revived after well over a decade in the wilderness (and over two decades since its prime years). But I watch that action-packed trailer for Delta Force: Hawk Ops and I feel nothing, nor recognise it as having any of the qualities that made Delta Force special back then (and frankly, would still make it stand out in today’s gaming scene).
There’s what looks like a burning middle-eastern city, some kind of near-future tech gadgetry, tanks, explosions, a rather polysterene-like ceiling caving in, and of course of course a sequence where you’re letting rip with a minigun mounted on a chopper. I’ve seen it all before. You’ve seen it all before. Do we really need more?
What makes this more frustrating is that the original Delta Force games (1-3) were veritable FPS pioneers. These games chucked you down on massive maps in charge of the titular Delta Squad, infiltrating compounds from any angle of your choosing. Gunfights often took place over hundreds of feet, with your enemies being jaggy little blips on the horizon and you having to use the revolutionary scope to catch proper sight of them .
There was no music, and really not that much sound other than the crisp clacks of gunfire. With enemies usually so far away, you were rarely even sure that you’d landed the fatal shot until you went right up close to them to investigate. Both you and enemies would die easily, and I’m not sure but I think that you couldn’t save mid-level, so it forced you to be extra-careful and expedient in your approach.
The 32-player multiplayer was fantastic too, with a bunch of classic modes like Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, as well as the option to play through the whole campaign with a few of your buddies.
In many ways, Delta Force felt more advanced than the Medal of Honors and Call of Duties that would only come out years later. It had tough AI, and was compelling in its stark, no-nonsense depiction of military combat. It’s a shame, then, to see this unexpected reboot reaching for the lowest common denominator of military shooters. It looks like it’s turning its back on the series’ identity and tactical realism in favour of a blockbuster template, and for what? To get stomped by the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty—much bigger-budgeted IPs doing much the same thing?
The CoD vibes are more than just regular copycatting as well, as Chinese developer TiMi is best known fo Call of Duty: Mobile, among myriad other mobile games. Every developer’s got a right to step up to big-boy games development of course, but aren’t the days of CoD-likes about a decade behind us now, and isn’t a campaign based around the movie Black Hawk Down also a bit behind the curve in this day and age?
With Rainbow Six all but abandoning its tactical shooter roots (or rather taking them online), and SWAT dead in the water, at the moment it’s only really Ready or Not that’s flying the flag for this venerable genre. I’d much rather have seen Delta Force provide it some backup from range than enter into an unwinnable shootout with the blockbusters.