Door Kickers 2: Task Force North Review

I’ll be honest, I really don’t care for the original Rainbow Six games. They were released when I was too young to play them, and by the time I was old enough to hold a controller, I became addicted to the substantially less realistic entries into the franchise. Even as an adult, I never managed to enjoy them, because they’re tedious and have terrible UIs. The reason I’m bringing that up is because Door Kickers 2 is essentially a full game version of the planning sequences that you could complete in the pre-Vegas Rainbow Six games, and yet I love it. It takes what made those planning sequences interesting, removes everything that made them boring, and adds so many unique elements that it’s far and away one of the best strategy games ever created. It’s one that you can enjoy for five minutes, an hour, or four years of Steam Early Access and not get tired of. And as long as you think its premise is interesting, it’s one that you owe it to yourself to play.

If you, like me, are too young to really remember what the original Rainbow Six games were like, let me fill you in. At the start of each one of their levels, you could come up with a plan for your troopers to move through complex environments. This involved setting up routes for your soldiers, specifying specific times when they would detonate explosive charges or throw flashbangs, and even going so far as to not allow them to engage certain enemies. All of that was done through a mostly monochrome map, and after your plan was set, you could more-or-less modify it as a mission progressed. It was painfully unintuitive to do so, though, and that’s where Door Kickers 2 comes in. Its core gameplay isn’t all that different from the aforementioned Rainbow Six games; you start each vaguely Middle Eastern-themed level by selecting which one of your highly customised troopers you want to use, then change their loadouts for your specific mission. Once they’re deployed, you come up with a plan for them to clear out an enemy stronghold, rescue hostages, or defuse bombs.

However, the main difference between Door Kickers 2 and the aforementioned Rainbow Sixes is that your first scheme doesn’t have to be anywhere close to perfect, or even very complex. You can order your soldiers to do something as simple as kicking a door in, then pause the game and issue another set of commands so they can deal with the threats that they spot inside the room you just entered. Those threats, just to be clear, are beautifully rendered, as is just about everything in the game. You can look at them (and re-issue orders while paused) as many times as you want, which allows you to complete missions at your own pace. That’s something that wasn’t really possible in the titles you may or may not have grown up playing, and it’s what makes Door Kickers 2 so perfect. Each one of its hundred-odd operations aren’t puzzles with only one real solution. They’re brain-teasers that you can solve however you want to, and you have as much time as you need to do so.

And unlike in the original Door Kickers, the game gives you all the tools you need to do that. Although all of your missions take place on one floor instead of multiple, you can do whatever you want to that floor to make it a suitable battleground. You can destroy walls with explosive charges or grenade launcher rounds, plow through entryways with soldiers equipped with ballistic shields, or even sneak around them using suppressors and operatives who blend in with civilians. The choice is always up to you, and that choice never feels overwhelming. The base game has three factions to choose from, each one of which come with their own unique sets of equipment and specialties. The Rangers have assault rifles and are good at clearing rooms. The CIA have silenced pistols and can use stealth for diffusing difficult situations. The Nowhereaki SWAT, the title’s version of a Middle Eastern police force, have strength in numbers and Molotov cocktails. You can upgrade each one unit by unlocking new weapons in an armoury, and by progressing through a skill-tree, which turns them from formidable troops into battle-hardened badasses.

The best adjective to describe Door Kickers 2’s gameplay is “intuitive”. Nothing about it forces you to look up a guide, and everything about it simply works. If you want to change one of your trooper’s paths through a room while they’re moving, for example, all you need to do is select them and drag your mouse to where you want them to go. If you want to unlock a weapon that can only be purchased with in-game battle honours instead of its regular currency, you simply need to survive a multi-mission campaign. If you’re having trouble clearing out a room conventionally, invite one of your friends to help you complete it in online co-op. If you’re tired of playing large maps, create a small one with its in-game mission generator or your own with its map editor. And if you want to change a core part of the game, download a mod off of Steam Workshop.

After four years in Early Access, there’s a community-made mod for almost anything you can think of in Door Kickers 2. The vast majority of them are maps, which range from recreations of classic Counter-Strike environments to ones that look like your flat. There are also ones that allow you to effectively get rid of the game’s leveling mechanic, ones that replace the game’s amazing sound design, and, most importantly, ones that add entirely new playable factions. I’m personally partial to the Instrument of Violence pack which put Russian and Chinese special forces, 1960s/’70s/’80s/’90s/early ‘00s American special forces and the mercs from Jagged Alliance in the game, but the possibilities are almost endless.

And, ultimately, that’s what makes Door Kickers 2 such an amazing game. It gives you the tools to complete a huge variety of objectives, a huge variety of missions on which to complete them, the ability to mod in a huge variety of new units and mechanics alike. It’s up to you to decide how to use all those tools. When you do, you won’t have to deal with any bugs or anything that seems out of place, and will be able to see exactly how your troops enact violence in detailed visuals and with satisfying sounds. That couldn’t be said for the titles that inspired Door Kickers 2, and although it could be said for its predecessor, it’s a better game in every way imaginable than that prequel. Fans of hardcore military strategy titles won’t find a better one on the market, and even those who don’t think they’ll enjoy commanding virtual troops will probably be surprised about how much they enjoy Door Kickers 2.‍