Delta Force review

Partial as I am to a thunderous multiplayer gunfest, I’ve been firmly in Delta Force’s camp since it was revealed in 2023. The bipartisan military junta of Battlefield and Call of Duty is in dire need of a shake-up, and the passion Team Jade seemingly has for Delta Force – a somewhat forgotten series in the West, but a cultural phenomenon in China where the studio is based – made me hopeful its take on big-budget buddy blasting would help change the tune for this particular strand of first-person shooting.

Delta Force reviewDeveloper: Team JadePublisher: TiMi Studios GroupPlatform: Played on PCAvailabilty: Out now on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), coming soon for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Android and iOS

As it turns out, Delta Force mainly adds to the noise. Its multiplayer spins on large-scale combat and squad-based extractions are meticulously designed and undeniably entertaining. But they’re also structurally conservative, only making minor tweaks to otherwise familiar formulas. Team Jade makes bolder decisions in its recently released cooperative campaign, Black Hawk Down, but these ideas are underdeveloped and poorly executed, leading to a desperately unpleasant experience Delta Force may have been better off without.

We’ll start with this newest addition to Delta Force, which was added to the free-to-play shooter just last week. Set during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is supposedly a remake of the 2003 game of the same name, generally considered the strongest entry in the series developed by its original steward Novalogic. Unlike that game, however, Team Jade’s campaign is also an officially licensed tie-in for Ridley Scott’s 2001 film, featuring in-engine cutscenes that recite lines and mimic shots from Scott’s movie, as well as actual clips from the film itself, primarily in the campaign’s introduction. Such a licensing deal would have made perfect sense for Novalogic’s game back in 2003, if the studio had the finances to afford it. But Ridley Scott’s film is nearly 25 years old, which makes Team Jade wrapping its campaign in that particular flag a bit strange.

Delta Force – Official Black Hawk Down Launch Trailer Watch on YouTube

This isn’t the only puzzling aspect to Black Hawk Down’s relationship with its source material. For some reason, Team Jade has only remade about half of the 2003 campaign. This modern Black Hawk Down kicks off the action with the mission ‘Irene’, the eleventh mission in Novalogic’s campaign, and the point at which Delta Force and the US Rangers commence their raid to capture the advisors to General Aidid. In fairness, Team Jade’s work isn’t meant to be a precise replication of Novalogic’s, but the fact it still only features seven missions to Novalogic’s sixteen seems odd, to say the least. Moreover, these missions are extremely short. If you could run through them unhindered, Delta Force could well clock in at a shorter running time than the film.