Delta Force has a long and rich history, which of course I had no idea about. With roots dating back to the 1990s, Delta Force was a tactical shooter franchise developed by NovaLogic. THQ acquired the rights to Delta Force as a result of the closure of NovaLogic, and now it appears that the same rights have been transferred to Level Infinite.
This week at Summer Game Fest 2024, I had the opportunity to sit down with Level Infinite and Team Jade to learn all about how the company is bringing this classic shooter to life for a modern audience while paying homage to its legacy. This is Delta Force: Hawk Ops, a free-to-play, fully cross-platform shooter with a variety of game modes and tons of ambition.
Team Jade has a wealth of shooter experience coming from the highly successful Call of Duty Mobile, among others, but as far as I can tell, this is the first time the team has created something with such broad cross-platform aspirations. Delta Force: Hawk Ops is indeed coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Windows PC, Android and iOS, complete with cross-play (by entry), cross-progression, premium story mode addition. , on top of the free-to-play multiplayer game. The developers even boasted to me that they optimized the game so much that you can run it on a GTX 480.
In a world with mountains of competitive shooters, Team Jade certainly has their work cut out for them, but I can confirm that they seem to have thoroughly tested the gameplay of Delta Force, especially as a huge Battlefield fan. Here’s why Delta Force: Hawk Ops is rising on my list of most anticipated Xbox games and upcoming PC games in equal measure.
What if Call of Duty and Battlefield had a baby with a deeper emphasis on tactical simulation games?
Delta Force: Hawk Ops reminded me how easy it is sometimes to slip into a “gaming bubble” and not even realize that entire franchises and games even exist. Delta Force is a wildly successful classic franchise in its own right, but this carefully crafted reboot has already garnered a lot of hype in the mobile gaming community, with trailers racking up millions of views. I want to be transparent that I haven’t experienced the original titles, but this is a lot from the perspective of someone who usually plays the classic Call of Duty and Battlefield modes. As a fan of both, I was incredibly pleased with what Team Jade has to offer here.
The build I played was in early alpha, so some bugs were to be expected, but even now it feels incredibly polished and visually stunning. The game is built on the Unreal Engine — but you honestly wouldn’t know it. Team Jade really put on a masterclass in shaping the Unreal Engine to achieve a very unique feel that embraces the speed of Call of Duty while maintaining the class-based tradition of the original Delta Force games.
On my first experience, I was treated to a familiar attack/defense mode that Battlefield players will no doubt be familiar with. It is a massive 64-player war, complete with vehicle combat. I didn’t get to the vehicle in the demo build, but I did get to play with the various operators, their tools and weapons.
The game takes place in a modern but almost futuristic war world where robotics and drones are more common. One of the operator gadgets I had was a cluster of mini drones that would fly into an area and emit a suppressor field to help suffocate the enemy lines. Another gadget I had was basically a healing weapon that allowed you to shoot players with arrows that kept their health at the top.
What interested me the most about it feel Delta Force: Hawk Ops felt like a mix of Call of Duty and Battlefield. The time-to-kill (TTK) and sense of movement is definitely something I would more easily compare to Call of Duty, with the speed I would expect from Activision’s flagship. However, the sheer scale of the maps, satisfying kill zones, and team-to-team gameplay are definitely more reminiscent of Battlefield. Throwing in ammo crates, health packs, healing teammates, laying down fire suppression, and those epic stalemates are exactly what I would typically look for in a Battiefleid title, and Team Jade did it incredibly well.
I only had time to experience one map during my playtime with the game, but it hit me with Battlefield Bad Company 2 vibes, right down to the silenced VSS rifle as I weaved crisp shots into the scene of combat.
There are mountains of Call of Duty and Battlefield clones on the market, especially on mobile devices. I think it would be a disservice to Delta Force: Hawk Ops to count her among them. It’s clear that there’s some Call of Duty Mobile expertise to the feel of the game, along with inspiration from great combat sims like Battlefield, but they blend into something that ultimately feels unique in its own right. However, Delta Force: Hawk Ops offers much more than just a Battlefield-like Havoc mode.
Free-to-play with cross-development on mobile, Xbox, PC and more
As I mentioned earlier, Delta Force: Hawk Ops is a truly cross-platform shooter. It offers full cross-platform play and progression and covers literally every single modern platform. Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation, Android and iOS, all on the same engine, with the same gaming feel. It’s quite an impressive feat, especially when you consider that it’s all running on the Unreal Engine as well.
I have certain preconceived notions about how the Unreal Engine usually feels and plays, and Team Jade totally shattered that with Delta Force: Hawk Ops. Indeed, the developers told me that the game is so optimized that it will run even on PC GPUs from over a decade ago. However, the version I played was running on a high-end computer and looked pretty stunning.
Generally speaking, players will not be forced to compete in unfair matches. For example, touch players will be paired with other touch players, although it remains to be seen how well input detection works in practice. Battlefield 2042 can be particularly annoying in this regard, as it lumps mouse and keyboard players and controller players into the same lobbies. Not exactly an easy problem, I suppose, but it’s worth noting that Team Jade thought about it.
However, when you switch from PC to console to mobile, you’ll keep all your unlocks, purchases, skins, and more with the same user account. This will truly be a shooter that you can take on the go and continue your progress anywhere, much like titles like Fortnite. I foresee a future of shooters going down this platform-agnostic path, with games like Delta Force: Hawk Ops at the forefront if it turns out the way the team intends.
Delta Force: Hawk Ops microtransactions will be purely cosmetic, thankfully the team assures me. The game will be free-to-play in multiplayer in all its modes, but Team Jade is also building a premium campaign mode, which is a fully rebuilt version of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, inspired by an incident in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.
Can Delta Force: Hawk Ops compete with the heavyweights?
I’m a little curious to see what the final product of Delta Force: Hawk Ops will look like. It’s hard for me to ignore the fact that some of the environmental destruction and vehicular combat detailed in the game’s trailers wasn’t actually present or prevalent in the demo I played. There were also various bugs and stressors, including protruding collision boxes that, for example, prevented bullets from connecting with their targets. I’m sure Team Jade will address these types of issues before a final release in the future, but it’s worth watching.
One thing I don’t care about is Delta Force’s overarching gameplay loop, which was incredibly satisfying from every angle. Solid gunplay, satisfying effects, a wide variety of gadgets and strategies, along with a plethora of game modes should give Delta Force: Hawk Ops the strength it needs to compete with the big boys. I look forward to seeing where this all leads.