First Impressions - '83

Rising Storm 2: Vietnam and the Rising Storm expansion for Red Orchestra 2 are, bar none, my two favourite shooters of all time. Coming from a guy who’s played just about every FPS on the market, both big and small, that’s saying something. I love Ready or Not’s realism, Squad’s spectacle, and Arma’s…Arma-ness. I’ve racked up hundreds of hours in Insurgency: Sandstorm, and thousands in various Call of Duty games over the years. Yet those two titles published by Tripwire Interactive are the only ones I keep coming back to year after year. 

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‍‘83 is their spiritual successor. It’s made by some of the same developers, and carries over many of the same mechanics. And it physically pains me to say that I can’t recommend it. 

‍‘83, like most of the shooters I love, is a casual mil-sim. Whereas Arma all but requires you to play in a clan, and the recent Battlefield titles are filled with absurd skins, Blue Dot Games' game lands somewhere in the middle of the FPS spectrum. It only takes a few shots to down your enemies, and everyone is dressed appropriately for the battlefield. You don’t have to be glued to your mic, and matches last around 30 minutes. It’s a full-fledged PvP experience, replete with tanks and designated roles, but still best enjoyed with a few beers on a Friday afternoon.

The last shooter I could say that about was Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, and that’s far and away the best part about ‘83. Its core gameplay still revolves around tactics and shooting at enemies you can barely see. Its gunplay is forgiving enough to stay accessible, and teamwork feels encouraged rather than mandatory. ‘83’s shooting mechanics brush up against the genre’s best, and its small community is refreshingly relaxed. The limited map pool leans toward constant action instead of drawn-out stalemates like those in Hell Let Loose, and even when you’re losing, there’s always room for a bit of banter with your teammates — or the players curbstomping you.

For all that, ‘83 has some fairly serious problems. The biggest is foundational: it does very little that its competitors don’t already do. It may be more relaxed than most, but that alone isn’t enough in a genre where players are fiercely loyal to their game of choice. ‘83 lacks a defining hook — nothing here is compelling enough to pull players away from their preferred battlefield, whether that means donning a Soviet uniform or picking up an M16A1 elsewhere.

That’s partly because there simply isn’t much content. At time of writing, there are only a handful of maps and two factions with limited arsenals. You can see everything the game has to offer within a couple of hours. Compared to the decade-old Squad or even the recent-ish Arma Reforger, that’s a major shortcoming.  No matter how enjoyable the core gameplay is, repetition sets in quickly when you’re using the same weapons in the same environments again and again. That will likely change over time — but right now, it’s a problem.

It doesn’t help that ‘83 isn’t particularly polished. It doesn’t look noticeably better than its predecessors, yet runs significantly worse. On a solid PC, I struggled to maintain 50FPS even with lowered settings. Server performance is inconsistent, and minor bugs are common. If you played earlier builds, this version is certainly more stable, but that’s not saying much.

I’ve rarely wanted a video game to succeed as much as ‘83 in spite of all that. It’s the unofficial sequel to my two favourite shooters, and it scratches an itch that no other game quite can. I love jumping in, chatting nonsense over proximity voice, and fighting enemies who don’t look like they’ve just come from a rave.

But that’s all it has right now: potential. The foundation is there, but it lacks the content, polish, and identity needed to bring in a wider audience.If you’re already invested in this niche, or want to support its development, it may be worth a look. Otherwise, you’re better off waiting to see if ‘83 can evolve into the cult classic it so clearly wants to be. Otherwise, you’re better off waiting to see if ‘83 can evolve into the cult classic it so clearly wants to be. ‍

‍‘83 is currently in Steam Early Access. Check back on Jump Dash Roll for a full review when it launches!