Delta Force has a long and storied history, which I was admittedly completely unaware of. With roots dating back to the 1990s, Delta Force was a tactical shooter franchise developed by NovaLogic. THQ acquired the rights to Delta Force in the wake of NovaLogic’s closure, and now it appears those same rights have been transferred to Level Infinite.
This week during the Summer Game Fest 2024 festivities, I had the opportunity to sit down with Level Infinite and Team Jade to learn all about how the company is reviving this classic shooter franchise for a modern audience, while paying tribute to its legacy. This is Delta Force: Hawk Ops, a free-to-play, fully cross-platform shooter with a variety of game modes and a ton of ambition.
Team Jade has a wealth of shooting expertise drawn from the hugely successful Call of Duty Mobile, among other things, but this is, as far as I could tell, the first time the team has created something with such broad cross-platform ambitions. Delta Force: Hawk Ops is indeed coming to Xbox Series on top of free-to-play multiplayer. The developers even bragged to me that they optimized the game so that you could 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 captured the gameplay of Delta Force, especially as a huge Battlefield fan. This is why Delta Force: Hawk Ops tops my list of most anticipated Xbox games and upcoming PC games equally.
What if Call of Duty and Battlefield had a baby, with a deeper emphasis on tactical simulation play?
Delta Force: Hawk Ops reminded me how easy it is to get into a “gaming bubble” sometimes, and be completely unaware that entire franchises and games even exist. Delta Force is a hugely successful classic franchise in its own right, but this carefully crafted reboot has already created a lot of hype in mobile gaming communities, with trailers racking up millions of views. I want to be transparent that I haven’t experienced the original titles, but so this is very much from the perspective of someone who typically plays classic Call of Duty modes and Battlefield. As a fan of both, I was incredibly pleased with what Team Jade had 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 Unreal Engine, but you honestly wouldn’t know it. Team Jade truly presented a masterclass in shaping Unreal Engine to achieve a very unique feel, one that encompasses the speed of Call of Duty while retaining the class-based traditions of the original Delta Force games.
For my first experience, I was treated to a familiar attack/defense mode that Battlefield players will no doubt find familiar. This is 64-player full-scale warfare, complete with vehicular combat. I didn’t manage to get a vehicle in the demonstration version, but I was able to play with different operators, their tools and their weapons.
The game takes place in a modern, but almost futuristic war world where robotics and drones are more common. One operator gadget I had was a cluster of mini-drones that would fly into an area and send out a suppression field, choking the enemy lines. Another gadget I had was essentially a healing gun, which allowed you to shoot players with darts that would keep their hit points up.
What intrigued me most about the feeling from Delta Force: Hawk Ops, the game somehow felt like a mix of Call of Duty and Battlefield. The time-to-kill (TTK) and sense of movement is certainly something I’d more easily compare to Call of Duty, with the speed I’d expect from Activision’s flagship shooter. However, the sheer size of the maps, the satisfying kill zones and the inter-team gameplay are certainly more reminiscent of Battlefield. Dropping ammo crates, health packs, healing teammates, suppressing fire and those epic stalemates are exactly what I normally look for in a Battiefleid title, and Team Jade nailed that feeling incredibly well.
I only had time to experience one map during my time with the game, but I was struck by the Battlefield Bad Company 2 vibes, right down to the silenced VSS rifle, as I weaved in crunchy headshots across the battle theater.
There are mountains of Call of Duty and Battlefield clones on the market, especially on mobile. However, I think it would be a disservice to Delta Force: Hawk Ops if I counted it among them. Clearly there’s some Call of Duty Mobile expertise feeding the game’s feel, alongside inspiration from large-scale combat simulations like Battlefield, but they merge into something that ultimately feels unique in its own right. However, Delta Force: Hawk Ops has much more to offer than the Battlefield-like Havoc mode.
Free to play with cross-progression on mobile, Xbox, PC and beyond
As I said, Delta Force: Hawk Ops is a true cross-platform shooter. It offers complete cross-platform play and progression, integrating literally every modern platform. Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation, Android and iOS, all on the same engine, with the same gameplay feel. It’s a pretty impressive feat, especially when you realize it’s all running on Unreal Engine too.
I have some preconceptions about how Unreal Engine typically feels and plays, and Team Jade completely broke that with Delta Force: Hawk Ops. The developers told me that the game has been optimized to run even on PC GPUs from over a decade ago. However, the version I played ran on a more expensive PC and looked quite stunning.
In general, players are not forced to participate in unfair matches. For example, touch-enabled players will be merged with other touch-enabled players, although it remains to be seen how well the input detection works in practice. Battlefield 2042 can be particularly annoying in this regard, bundling mouse and keyboard players and controller players into the same lobbies. It’s not exactly an easy problem to solve, I think, but it’s worth mentioning that Team Jade has made considerations for it.
However, you keep all your unlocks, purchases, skins and the like when you move from PC to console to mobile, using the same user account. This is truly a shooter that you can play on the go and continue your progress wherever you go, just like with titles like Fortnite. I foresee the future of shooters going this cross-platform route, with games like Delta Force: Hawk Ops at the forefront, if it lands the way the team intended.
The microtransactions of Delta Force: Hawk Ops will be purely cosmetic, the team happily 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 that is a completely rebuilt version of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, inspired by the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu incident.
Can Delta Force: Hawk Ops compete with the heavyweights?
I’m a little intrigued as to 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 described in the game’s trailers wasn’t really present or prevalent in the demo I played. There were also several bugs and stressors, including protruding collision boxes that prevented bullets from hitting their targets. I’m confident that Team Jade will address these types of issues before the final release in the future, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.
One thing I’m not worried about is Delta Force’s overarching gameplay loop, which felt incredibly satisfying from every angle. Tight gunplay, satisfying impacts, a wide variety of gadgets and strategies, on top of a wealth of game modes, should give Delta Force: Hawk Ops the clout it needs to compete with the big boys. I’m curious to see where it all goes.