Astragon Ent. and developer Chronos Unterhaltungs Software have recently released Firefighting Simulator: The Squad and we have spent the last few days fighting fires around a very flammable community. Is this game worth your time and efforts, or should you just let this one slowly burn out alone?
Read on to find out
Firefighting video games have been around since the early 80’s and have been a mixed bag of gameplay styles. None have went so far as to create a co-op experience, or even a squad based style of firefighting at your command. Publisher Astragon Entertainment continues their simulation onslaught of games with yet another impressive release from one of their many developers.
Firefighting Simulator: The Squad Review – The County is on Fire
Firefighting Simulator: The Squad has no real story to speak of and gameplay revolves around you as the fire Captain in charge of a 4 man firefighting team. This seems like a missed opportunity as there are so many friggin fires to fight that there HAS to be an arson on the loose. From burning office building, to burning warehouses, even down to dumpster fires and hot dog carts. What is causing all these fires? Some guy gets evicted and all his crap is burning on the sidewalk, and there’s no one asking the obvious question: Who’s starting the damn fires?
The variety and types of fires is pretty expansive, with new missions being added often with updates, so while you will have some repetitiveness, there’s enough variety to keep you busy. One of the newest missions is a diner burning down that has a car parked in it, and it isn’t a drive-thru.
Firefighting Simulator: The Squad Review – Training Recommended
Firefighting Simulator: The Squad isn’t a game one should just jump right into. The game has a basic Fire Academy to teach you how to use your equipment, drive your trucks, and put out different types of fires. Whether you need a CO2 extinguisher or a firehose, is a pretty important distinction to be able to make, as hitting a pan full of grease on a stove top will make for a pretty flame show, but will also make the fire burn hotter and higher and give you more work.
A fireman is only as good as his equipment, and the game provides you with all the tools you’ll need to be successful. The academy will teach you how to use your Halligan Bar, crow bar, fire axe, and your circular saw, and also teach you when you’ll need a specific one. There’s no lock that’s a match for that circular saw, so keep that in mind when you need to get through a garage door.
Firefighting Simulator: The Squad Review – Your Rides
There are five vehicles you’ll be choosing from to get to your next mission. You can choose to deploy straight to the fire, or you can choose to drive there. There are achievements/trophies for driving certain distances, so completionists will want to drive until they reach those milestones. You can also earn bonus XP for driving to the fire quickly, but reaching Max XP (Level 40) isn’t that much of a feat. The trucks drive OK, and once you hit the lights and sirens folks will move out of your way. Getting the fast bonus is pretty easy as long as you pay attention to your GPS and don’t miss your turns.
The Rosenbauer TP3 is our go-to machine, as it’s easy to drive, and once at the fire, easy to quickly deploy attack lines from. The T-Rex will deploy for you directly to the fire, if you’ll need it, as will the Viper. Both are pretty easy to use, and there’s an achievement for saving someone using the T-Rex’s bucket, and an achievement for using the Viper’s ladder nozzle.
Firefighting Simulator: The Squad Review – Your Team
The game can be played co-op online, but if you want to just play single player, the AI will be there to help. You can order them around individually or as a team, or you can just attach an attack line to your firetruck, slap a nozzle on it, and hand it to one of them. they’ll get busy attacking the fire right away. For most fires, we found it simpler to just set-up four attack lines, handing one to each of them and keeping one for ourselves.
As you fight through a building, you’ll need to find victims that may need carried out. You can order one of your mates to do it, and they’ll not only take the victim to the ambulance, but will then return to their attack line and keep fighting the fire. Occasionally the AI will stop fighting the fire for some reason, and will just stand there looking useless. You’ll have to order them to attack some flames somewhere, so you’ll need to keep an eye on that.
Firefighting Simulator: The Squad Review – Conclusion
Developer Chronos Unterhaltungs Software has done a good job with Firefighting Simulator: The Squad. The graphics are right where they need to be and the physics of the fires and the quenching of them seems pretty spot on. The game isn’t as technical as it could have been, and that’s probably a good thing. It’s a fun game to play and pretty easy to master, even for the younger gamers. While the game can be repetitive at times, it still has enough variety to keep you entertained.
8
Firefighting Simulator: The Squad review code provided by publisher and reviewed on a PS5. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.
