Extraction Shooter EXFIL Offers A Milsim Experience For More Casual Gamers
EXFIL is a new first-person shooter that combines the tactical precision of military simulators like ARMA, the extraction mechanics of Escape from Tarkov, and the intuitive pick-up-and-play squad-based combat of Counter-Strike 2.
The game drops four opposing teams into a single map with the goal of recovering intel from a downed helicopter. They must then exfiltrate safely from the map with the intel in their possession to win the match.
How you extract with the intel is entirely up to you and your team. You can do a quick snatch and run, setup ambushes, or go Rambo and kill every member of the opposing teams. You’ll have access to an extensive arsenal of weapons and gear to help you accomplish your mission, including primary and secondary weapons, grenades, tripwire traps, deployable drones, GPS and trackers, and night vision goggles for night missions.
Each mission will be different as you’ll not only have to adapt to your opponents’ changing strategies, but also the time of day, weather conditions (including full-blown winter storms), and the season. Luckily, you’ll be able to use the integrated VOIP radio and contextual ping to communicate with your teammates to be able to adapt to any situation.
“There is an entire market of milsim gamers out there who aren’t interested in run-and-gun twitch experiences, but also only have one or two hours a day to play a few rounds with their online friends,” Misultin Studios game designer Chris Greig told PCGamesN. “Our goal is to become a home for those lost souls stuck in the middle. This is the game we want to play.”
“For us realism is about realism of experience,” he added. “It’s about not getting too comfortable in a game. Knowing that conditions can change. We feel like other games are often purposefully on rails by design in this genre. The bad guy is always in the same spot so you can build mastery. But we don’t feel like that is realism.”
It looks like the studio isn’t too focused on revenue either and would rather deliver the game that they and the community wants to play. “We are a very small team that can afford to live in our niche. We aren’t beholden to a publisher or external stakeholders,” Greig explained. “This allows us more than anything to take risks. We can take the arcade elements away from other games and slow things down. We don’t have to lean on grind mechanics, so weapons and equipment can be oriented around telling the story of the four factions rather than maximizing profits.”
The team concluded its first playtest on Monday, presumably with more to come ahead of its early access launch on Steam. You can request access to future playtests through the EXFIL Steam page.
