Delta Force Black Hawk Down campaign preview: A true-to-life, intense co-op experience

Delta Force Black Hawk Down’s campaign is coming soon, and ahead of the official launch, I took a trip to Tencent America to play through a few of the game’s early levels. While I’m not an expert marksman, I had a blast playing alongside other journalists, desperately trying to work together to accomplish our missions.

Although my time with the game was brief, it definitely felt like Black Hawk Down, that’s for sure. The campaign maps well well-designed, and there looks to be a good amount of room for improvisation and a variety of strategies.

Fans of the online gameplay will certainly have something fun to experience when the Delta Force Black Hawk Down campaign launches this month.

---

The Delta Force Black Hawk Down campaign feels true-to-life in the best way

We had a chance to play through a few of the early missions of the Delta Force Black Hawk Down campaign ahead of launch, in three and later four-person squads. Each mission certainly felt varied and intense in their own ways. The enemies were fairly smart, and hid in clever areas to try and take out me and my teammates.

Being a team is more important than being "Rambo" (Image via Level Infinite)

One mission required us to apprehend a group of individuals, located all across a map riddled with enemies. It was important to not shoot any of the people we were trying to capture, but if even one of them died, it was mission over. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get overzealous and open fire as soon as you breach a room.

I may or may not have taken out a friendly target once or twice. The campaign does have friendly fire too, so you have to be careful about when you shoot and where you’re aiming. At least I wasn’t the only one to accidentally take down an ally — at least I revived them afterwards, so that makes it fine.

Whether trying to protect a caravan, or taking down insurgents, the gameplay of Delta Force Black Hawk Down’s campaign felt amazing. It’s one of the more challenging FPS experiences I’ve ever had — you cannot approach it like it’s Call of Duty, or Halo, or something. You have to approach it closer to something like the classic SOCOM games.

No matter where you go, you aren't safe (Image via Level Infinite)

It’s all about precision and teamwork, not running and gunning like a madman. From picking the right loadout and characters, to communicating efficiently, everything matters in this campaign. Our first attempts didn’t really feature a lot of communication, but once we realized how intense the battles and objectives were going to be, we picked it up.

Fans of hardcore tactical gameplay are going to have a lot to love in Delta Force Black Hawk Down, that much is certain to me. There will of course be people who blow through it, but I think it will offer a decent challenge to your average player.

---

Map design in Delta Force Black Hawk Down’s campaign look and feel fantastic

The maps look gorgeous and are fun to explore (Image via Level Infinite)

I think one of my favorite things about the campaign was the map design. It felt like the real city, with lots of buildings to burst into, rubble to hide behind for cover, and plenty of enemies with guns, ready and willing to put bullets in me and my squad. It’s not a straight walk from one objective to the next, either. There’s so much exploration you can do, and none of it feels safe.

You can’t let that distract you either, though — going off on your own is incredibly dangerous when enemies lurk everywhere. Even within the first few moments of the first mission we played, there were enemies around almost every corner, and they were quick on the trigger finger.

When the maps needed to be, they were tight and focused. The convoy mission, for example, didn’t really give you a lot of room to maneuver, but that’s the idea. I haven’t enjoyed trying to think my way through an FPS campaign map this much in a long time. While you can go crazy and run and gun in online gameplay, as we pointed out in our review of Delta Force, that’s not going to be as effective here in the campaign; at least, I don’t think so.

---

Final thoughts - Incredibly excited for the campaign launch

Working together is so important, no matter what mission you're on (Image via Level Infinite)

While I don’t really play FPS titles with the same degree of frequency as my colleagues, I really found myself getting into Delta Force Black Hawk Down’s campaign. I think I’d enjoy it more with a controller, though — that was not something we had access to during the preview.

I made a lot of mistakes right away, though: I treated it like it was CoD and ran and jumped, only to immediately die when I fell too far. It was certainly a lesson well-learned. I feel like with a couple of friends, working together and communicating, this is going to be an intense, but fun experience. It felt good to progress a little more with each attempt.

The Delta Force gameplay was already solid, and the gunplay was already something I appreciated. But the added challenge of working together on difficult PvE objectives was right up my alley. You gain nothing from stealing kills, or cutting off your allies. It’s all about being a team.

---

Could you solo your way through Delta Force Black Hawk Down without anyone’s help? Possibly, but it’s far more satisfying to work together. I think fans are really going to be pleased with the campaign when it drops on February 21, 2025.