Enlisted, the free-to-play squad-based shooter from Darkflow Software and publisher Gaijin Network, is expanding beyond World War II. A new update opens access to Great War battles, bringing trench warfare and period weaponry into the game through an event called "All Loud on the Western Front" running until April 15th. The update introduces extra-low Battle Rating levels ranging from zero to minus three, slotting WWI-era squads into the existing progression structure.
The core of Enlisted has always been its squad mechanic. Rather than controlling a single soldier, each player commands an entire squad of AI-controlled fighters. Lose your current soldier and you immediately switch to another in your squad, keeping you in the action without a respawn timer. This creates battles that feel genuinely large in scale, with hundreds of soldiers, tanks and aircraft populating each engagement. The new Great War content strips that formula back to something rawer: bolt-action rifles, clubs and stationary machine guns replace the more advanced arsenal of the WWII setting, while artillery fire and gas attacks reshape how ground is contested. Every inch of terrain becomes something fought over rather than passed through.
The squad system does more than just keep you alive. It shapes how you approach every fight. Enlisted features 16 different soldier classes, each carrying unique perks and specialized weapons. Anti-tank guns, flamethrowers, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns and rifle grenade launchers all serve distinct tactical roles. You can flank with one squad, drop paratroopers behind enemy lines with another, or build fortifications and gun emplacements to lock down a position. The game gives you over 350 vehicles too, from tanks and armoured cars to fighters and bombers. If your vehicle gets destroyed you don't sit out the rest of the round. Your crew bails out and fights on foot as infantry, folding back into the ground war without missing a beat.
The broader structure is built around historical fronts spanning the full scope of the Second World War. Pacific islands, the villages of Normandy, the streets of Berlin, the snowy fields outside Moscow, the ruins of Stalingrad and the sands of Tunisia all serve as battlegrounds. Four nations are represented: the USA, USSR, Germany and Japan. Your choice of nation determines which fronts you fight on, which weapons and vehicles you unlock, and which uniforms your squads wear. Building out your army means choosing specialties across multiple squads, tailoring them to the theatres you want to fight in. The new WWI content extends that same logic backward in time, giving players a fundamentally different combat environment within the same progression framework.
Enlisted also hands players a full map and mission editor using the same developer tools the studio works with. Custom missions can be published to public servers, and hundreds are already available through a dedicated portal. These range from painstaking recreations of historical engagements to stranger creations like low-gravity battles on the surface of the Moon with energy weapons.
The Great War update shifts the tone considerably. Where WWII battles in Enlisted move with mechanized speed across open terrain, the WWI content funnels combat into trenches under constant bombardment. It is a slower, more grinding kind of violence, and the limited weaponry means engagements play out at closer range with fewer options for technological advantage. For a game that has spent its life recreating the Second World War, reaching back to the First is a meaningful expansion of what Enlisted can be.