Whenever I tell my friends about this game I like to say it's almost like a board game, every move each squad makes will ultimately decide the outcome of the match. The squad leaders and commander must communicate with each other to decide what the team's strategy is going to be and how to execute it, meanwhile the infantry must communicate with each other to survive each firefight. Strategy, Communication, and player skill will all determine which team is going to win the game. If a player fails to warn their squad of incoming enemy troops, it could lead to their squad being wiped out and the objective compromised. If a Squad Leader leads their squad too far away from the objectives, it takes away assets that could be better used on the objective. What i'm getting at is, your individual choices matter in this game, as well as the choices made by the rest of your team!
As far as for how the gameplay is mechanically speaking, it plays like your standard tactical shooter, check corners, peak, compensate for bulletdrop etc. controls are simple, nothing over-complicated. building up bases and assets is pretty easy to learn. Driving vehicles can feel awkward and the UI for getting in and out of them is a little awkward aswell.

This review is subject to change once this game is finished, but i am going to write a review in its current state for people that might be interested in it.
I'll try to keep this short, the combat in this game feels good for the most part, it has standard fighting game controls two high attacks and two low attacks that function differently as you use them with the control stick/pad there are also special moves and combos to be found; What i personally dislike about it however is that it can sometimes feel like one of those cheesy MMA games where your fighter starts doing things that you obviously dont want them to do or feel that your command was ignored and it does something else.

Players seem to agree that from a fencing standpoint the animations are pretty true to life, for the most part atleast because with the physics engine sometimes the blades will clash in funny ways and sometimes hits that would not be catastrophic are counted as a Win/Loss (this can mean you score a catastrophic hit to the head of your opponent but they lowered their weapon and it scratched your hand causing a Draw)

Now lets talk about the game itself in its current state. Multiplayer is done through Steam's gameshareremoteplay whatchyamacallit feature as there is no functional multiplayer server list or what have you. I personally play this game single player and have just as much fun playing against the bots, Im sure my 3 hrs in this game doesnt seem like alot but that is quite a long good time spent and had here. You're probably looking at this game because you remember 'Bushido Blade' right? if you could sit there and play that for hours alone, you can stand to play this game for hours alone. Story mode is in the works. But Versus mode and Survival mode will help keep you occupied. The Devs also make it very apparent that more characters will arrive!

If you've bought this game only to find the multiplayer is dead, try the Darkest Hour mod for it, Multiplayer still has players and it also has all the content from this game ported into it.

It can be good and fun and balances between a casual and hard-core expirience, ive found that its like a mix of chivalry, Mount and Blade, and Kingdom come, casual players can manage to get kills on high ranking players from just attacking them while they're busy fighting other people, in invasion and frontline the objective is to win, not uphold "honor", but it really doesnt take too long to figure out the flow of the game and manage to hold your own in 1v1s on the battlefield; and ive found that using a console controller made the game more playable. The game has more than its fair share of BS, Maul and zweihander are still the top OP weapons, directional blocking when no shield equipped isnt a thing so most 1 v 1s actually just end up with the both of you swinging at eachother blocking hits until someone falls for a feint or manages to get hit by a kick or miss a kick or even a swing, it can feel repetitive and never ending, especially when the both of you know how to counter eachers antics. It can also be upsetting to watch as your two handed axe, or halberd, or greatsword is parried by a wimpy dagger, cleaver, or short sword, one hand, with effortless ease multiple times. Its also important to note that weapon reach and FPV perception is off, there will be alot of moments youll say "no way that guy can hit me that far away" and does, or times youll swing randomly or even on accident and decapitate the guy. Now lastly the community since thats some thing alot of people worry about these days. I'd say the community is rather mild compared to games of this calibre, especially compared to chivalry; i cant speak for what goes on in the deathmatch servers, ranked 1v1 servers speak for themselves as nearly any rankes server on any PC game is going to be a toxic environment; but the TDM servers ie Frontline and Invasion seem to be rather calm, youll have your typical one or two players with the brain of a 12 year old spouting some racist crap trying to get a rise out of someone, then you'll sometimes have one clown teammate who just joined the game to play is his character that he designed to make look annoying as possible and just spam emotions, play the lute, or hit teammates the whole game, its easiest just to ignore them. With all these negative nitpicks why do i reccomend the game? Overall ive had a pretty fun expirience, i find im playing it alot amd enjoying it; i cant really say ive ever gotten too extremely frustrated with the game. It needs its work but the devs seem to be doing a decent job of keeping up with that lately.

It's pretty alright, it's fun but kindof BS at times. this a more Call of duty type shooter, while its for sure more in depth; theres no squad or teamplay really, youll work as a team at times but never too much sticking together. weapons are accurate for the era ofcourse, but i have no idea why stripper clips cost "Loadout points" (do the developers think they just handed soldiers a handful of bullets and said "Go F yourself"?) so anyways its good fun if you enjoy small skirmish games. I dont think i have to explain how the classes work being that its probably already in the description of the game, or you already know how it works because you played Insurgency (which i also recomend)

If you're looking for a more In-depth Eastern front world war 2 game thats actually out, i would say try your luck with Darkest Hour 44-45, its a mod for Red Orchestra ostfront (The first game, not RO2) its 64 players, has true to life classes, uniforms/units, battles, usable tanks, the works. player base is dwindling a bit though and its mainly active on weekends, So if youre someone who really worries about that you're better off with this one for now.

The bullets *SCREAM* to me from somewhere..

the combat in this game is effing nightmarish, sonic cracks as bullets fly over your head and you'll panic trying to figure out where its coming from, it will be a thrill but also a challenge to anyone whose been playing shooters like the typical Cod, battlefield, CsGo, (Overwatch even???) This game is also very unique from the other Orchestras, Like Darkest hour (definetely check that one out if this one piques your intrest) and RO2 since theres nothing quite like watching a Napalm strike come down (very well done faithful creation too i might add and doesnt cause frame drops) and kill everything and everyone in its vecinity..and then hearing everyone effected by it wail in extreme helpless pain, good times, also AH-1 Cobra, thing is horrifying, unless you're US, plus two points if you're flying it. Lastly the weapons, theres some classics here, what you got here is state of the art equipment of the era! uhh a little less fantastic than i make it sound..as a firearms enthusiast I can say that these are quite faithful recreations of them and definitely seem like they had alot of time spent into recreating them, they all feel awesome to shoot in game, even the shoddy ones!