One of the best PVE co-op shooters around, and still has one of the best monetization models in gaming. Tons of free earnable content, solid and enjoyable gameplay, and a very engaged community. It's a fantastic game overall, and while it's got its issues (many bugs, balancing issues, etc.), it's still one of the best PVE shooters available if you're not looking for a L4D-style co-op shooter.

(I played this on another platform first and completed almost everything, so please ignore the low steam hours.)

Cruelty Squad is a genuine masterpiece, masquerading itself as a hideous meme game. At a glance, it looks like a sh*tpost made in MS Paint, but dig just below the surface and you'll see that this game has a lot to say, and a lot of ideas, perspectives, and statements about the state of the world for you to chew on. This is a game made by a solo "Auteur" developer, and Ville Kallio's voice rings strong and clear through the messages found throughout the game.

Just to get this out of the way early, the visual style is indeed "hideous", but deliberately so. The entire game is designed to communicate the grotesque nature of the world of Cruelty Squad, from the disturbing face that appears on a game over screen or the strange border on the screen, to the low-poly, MS Paint-like visual style, or the raucous soundtrack that plays in all of the levels. This is a disturbing, grotesque, and uncomfortable world, and everything in this game is designed to communicate that fact, from its people and items, to its architecture and soundscape.

At its core, Cruelty Squad is a single-player cyberpunk/biopunk immersive sim FPS, similar to games like Deus Ex, or even Hitman, in some ways (despite the different perspective). You play as MT Foxtrot, a former member of the SEC Death Unit (yes, that SEC) who was discharged before being offered a job with the Cruelty Squad, a mercenary organization that is hired by various individuals and corporations to perform corporate hit jobs and miscellaneous wetwork.

MTF is essentially a chronically depressed loser who trudges along through mission after mission in hopes of one day fulfilling his dream of buying a house. That's right. His highest ambition in life is buying a house. With how things are going with the economy, and more specifically the housing market these days, that may as well be mine as well. As much as this sounds like a joke, I honestly think it's a brilliant inversion of the typical grand ambitions of protagonists, a poignant statement about the state of the world we live in, and honestly, something that is - and pardon my language - just so f**king relatable.

The catch with all of this is that, in this world, death is effectively meaningless, and the value of life is practically, if not literally, less than nothing. Resurrection and Genetic Recombination via the Archon Grid allows people to survive even the most gruesome of deaths, making it, in fact, really bloody hard to truly and permanently kill anyone. You can't quite kill anyone in this world, so you'll be dishing out the next best thing anyone can ask for: a raw, painful dose of cruelty.

The game takes place over the course of a large variety of different hit jobs on various targets, each with their own themes, gimmicks and challenges. The story progresses as you advance through them, with completing certain levels having broader effects on a few other aspects of the game. The game also features a stock market that ebbs and flows on its own, and can be used to make money (in addition to the mission payouts), which can then be used to buy weapons, equipment or implants (genuine advice: I'd highly advise investing in CIV as much as possible, as soon as possible. You'll thank me later). This is on top of a fishing system that is also tied to the stock market.

This review is not intended to be a comprehensive thesis, but Cruelty Squad is a masterfully designed satire of capitalism, corporatocracy, consumerism, techbros, and a wide variety of other tangentially related topics. It's got critiques of crypto, techbros, capitalism, corporations, private militaries and paramilitary organizations, funko pop collectors, and far more, alongside a lot of interesting political or mystical perspectives and philosophies, including talk about Gnosticism, Transhumanism, the meaning of life itself, what it would mean for us to conquer mortality, and how that would have resounding effects across society.

I'll be honest, the first time I played this, I played for a few minutes, thought it was some kind of low-effort meme game in the same vein of those crappy MLG compilation meme games, and then uninstalled it. It wasn't until I read about it online a while back that I decided to give it another shot (plus, watching the 6-hour long video Pyrocynical made on it didn't hurt), and I was utterly FLOORED by how complex and philosophical this game is. To dismiss this game as a mere "meme" or "sh*tpost" would be doing yourself the disservice of a lifetime, as Cruelty Squad is a shockingly complex and intellectual game at its core.

Honestly, it's probably one of my favorite games ever, and I would genuinely put it up there alongside masterpieces like Disco Elysium, Baldur's Gate 3, Deus Ex (2000) or Half-Life, to name a few. I recognize that some may not see it so highly, especially compared to the previously mentioned masterpieces, but I think that Cruelty Squad is deserving of being up there for so masterfully executing its concept, and vision, all while being made by one dude.

Ville Kallio is one of the GOATs, and my personal greatest inspiration as a student currently in college for Game Design. His incredible work as a solo game dev and game design auteur inspired me to get into game design, and one day, I hope to make my own intensely unique immersive sim FPS titles as he has.

Incredibly mid. The humor is extremely dated and honestly pretty stupid even for the time, the graphics haven't aged well at all, the gunplay is weak outside of a few guns like the Revolver or the Sawed-Off, the story is practically non-existent and what's there is nonsense filler, and I feel like I wasted 30 hours I will never get back. This is the type of game I would have liked when I was 10 and literally only drove around and got into gun fights when I played GTA 4 on my friend's PS3, not even knowing there was a campaign with a story.

Having played the base game week, Apocalypse Weekend and Paradise Lost, literally the only message I got from this game was "wife bad, middle eastern people are terrorists, rednecks like r@ping people in gimp suits, RWS love making themselves into weird self-inserts, and Mike J has a man milk fetish", amongst a few other similarly stupid stereotypes and memes. Including P3do Milo Yiannopolous was a particularly stupid choice in retrospect. At least you get the chance to burn him alive.

The one positive I'll give it is that it's FAR superior to Postal 3 and 4, which are both immensely disappointing after playing this and then going into those expecting them to be better.

You'll like this game if you're a 12 year old Russian kid who thinks being an edgy dumba** is the peak of comedy. Otherwise, I'd steer clear and go play something that'll actually enrich your life. Go play Half-Life instead of this. It was made 5 years earlier, is better in almost every respect, and is far more deserving of your time than this slop.

dreadnought yeet

It's ridiculous such an amazing game got delisted for such stupid reasons. Bring back Spec Ops: The Line!

I had no idea what I was getting myself into with this game, as the only other mystery game I've played like this was Disco Elysium, which is incredible in its own right, but this game blew my f**king socks off.

It took a little while to pick up some steam, and I'll admit that I definitely spent the first several hours at least kinda bored and just wandering around, waiting for the story to pick up, but when it does, it picks up. This game legitimately had me thinking about it when I wasn't playing, and trying to work out the details of the plot as it was that engaging once it started to open up a bit.

If you're feeling a bit apprehensive, I get you, as I was a bit apprehensive as well staring at this game in my library, not knowing at all what any of this is going to be like, but after completing it, I can safely say this is a game legitimately so good I wish I could empty my brain of knowledge about it and replay it again fresh.

Players who previously purchased the Imperial Edition before Patch 13 only received 2500 Aquilas from this deal. Players who buy it now are getting 14,000 bonus Aquilas. This is absolute bulls***, and a slap in the face to players who have supported this game since the beginning.

I have 700+ hours in-game and I am a big Darktide fan, but it is unacceptable that they'd give THAT MUCH to new players now without also giving the remaining balance to players who already purchased this bundle. I have supported this game through thick and thin up until now, but I will no longer defend this bulls*** if existing players are not compensated.

Better than Diablo 4. It's a pretty fun game overall once you learn the controls, and there's a wide variety of gear and weapons to collect. If you like 40k and Diablo-style games, this is a great pick! If you are planning on getting any DLC, I'd recommend picking up the complete collection on sale, as it's kinda expensive without a sale, and the DLC is only really worth it in a bundle that's on sale as it's mostly small stuff.

If you really must spend money, don't buy this game, and just give the cash to a homeless person instead. Or donate to charity. Or spend it on a nice pizza. Literally throwing it into a volcano would be better than spending it on this game. Just don't. There are a million gazillion indie game devs who would be not only more appreciative of your purchase, but also far more worthy.

The game is essentially an inferior MW2019, and while it's a fairly competent shooter at a technical level, the matchmaking is terrible, it's attached to possibly one of the most egregious and manipulative monetisation systems around, and is run by one of the most predatory and money-grubbing companies in the entire industry who also pioneered those monetisation systems.

Whenever you see any promises about this game, remember who publishes it, and what happened to both Overwatch 2 and WC3 Reforged.

This game is insanely predatory for a F2P game, and while it has a lot of fun gameplay to be had, most of it is locked behind insane levels of grind for standard vehicles, and prices designed mostly for whales if you want to opt for premium vehicles. Don't waste your time or money until the game's economy is improved. It's just literally not worth it unless you *only* play this game, and have a *lot* of free time, or are willing to spend the price of a full AAA game for one single vehicle that you still have to spend SL on to repair.