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Insurgency Sandstorm occupies an awkward place in the shooter landscape

by Amr (@siegarettes)

For my money the war in the Middle East, at least within fiction,  is separated by two eras: The Bush and Obama Eras. The first marked by “shock and awe” bombing campaigns and boots-on-the-ground military action, and the latter defined by the increase of drone warfare and escalating tech fetishism. Insurgency: Sandstorm is strictly rooted in that Bush Era, War on Terror understanding of the Middle East, and while it’s not any more morally comfortable, there’s a certain fervor to the era’s perspective that feels anachronistic today.  It’s in the very name: the idea of an insurgency feels outdated, and its presentation of the insurgent enemies certainly is.

Voice acting is rendered with broad Arab caricature, removed of specificity and delivered with accents that would honestly be hilarious if not for the severity that each line is delivered with. Avatars shout dialogue with desperation, convinced of the immediate danger of each situation. Insurgency believes in its verisimilitude, and wants you to believe as well. These are real people, and they’re really gonna die.

The guns, the guns are real too. Insurgency sells itself on the promise of that realism. The tech fetishism might be missing, but there’s plenty of military fetishism elsewhere. Weapons are modeled in detail, with functioning scopes and mechanisms. Bullet physics–from their trajectories to the way each caliber of bullet penetrates material–are given the same affectionate treatment. Team chat is audible if an enemy is in close proximity. Avatars choke and cough in smoke. All in the service of a creating a more lethal, more tactical game.

Insurgency: Sandstorm occupies a space somewhere between Rainbow Six: Siege and Battlefield. The quick kills call to mind the intimate firefights of Siege, but maps are generally spread over more open space and several control points, with some modes even giving access to vehicles. It doesn’t use a health based system, but you drop so fast you’ll rarely have a chance to recover from a shot. As a rule, an enemy with a sightline to you is one that’s got the kill. High lethality means that combat becomes an exercise in calculating risk, sprinting between cover and trying to find an advantageous position. Escaping disadvantage requires smart use of tools like smoke and flashbangs, or cooperation between a Commander and an Observer to bring in fire support.

Class dynamics as a whole are important, since loadouts are restricted by class and only a few players can fill each position. That prevents broken team dynamics and encourages everyone to play a role (though almost every time I ended up as a general rifleman). Respawn waves prevent formal squads from being formed, so I had to improvise a team with whoever was currently part of the reinforcements. This being an online game, that meant that most of the time there wasn’t much cooperation.

A team commander is basically needed to get anything done in Insurgency. On one memorable skirmish one player took over chat as commander, calling out points to capture and prepping the next point for a push as a group finished the capture. They called out good kills, gave good advice and warnings. Their map knowledge proved crucial, pointing out what sides were viable to move in from and which points had sightlines we could use to move into the current objective. They led us to a victory and a close call, then left as we tied up. Without them the toxicity of the space took over and the game quickly became disorganized and sour.

Rounds of Insurgency in general served as a reminder of how toxic online shooters can get. Co-op generally remains positive (generally), but any PVP match will be regularly full of either obnoxious or downright toxic players. Expect to hear a lot of shit talk, slurs and the like, as usual. Matches never became the angry shouting matches they could have been, but I assume that was just my luck. Part of this is the usual problems with unmoderated playerbases, and part is that this is exactly the kind of crowd a “hardcore” focused shooter tends to draw. Either way there’s a general low level discomfort to contend with at all times.

That’s Insurgency at its worst. At its best it reminded me of why exactly this style of shooter draws in such dedicated players. Its shooting model demands you learn each map, its sightlines and chokepoints, and doesn’t forgive anyone foolhardy enough to believe they can simply walk into the open and not get shot.

And unlike other shooters, the entire kit makes sense here. I found distinct uses and advantageous situations for each piece of equipment, and started to understand why you’d use them. Flash and smoke grenades feel useless in most shooters, but here smoke is an essential tool needed to approach and flash grenades make approaching a room with an unknown number of enemies inside a lot more comfortable. Suppression also makes approaching more than a single enemy alone a lethal encounter, which gave me a newfound appreciation for the danger of frag grenades and the area of denial ability of molotovs.

Guns, are of course, given just as much consideration. Shotguns are surprisingly lethal at medium range (which by all accounts is accurate), but are a liability in packed quarters, just as likely to cause friendly fire if you’re not careful. Rifles dominate mid to medium-long ranges, though recoil basically makes them useless at range without very short controlled bursts or single shots. And of course the snipers dominate long range and can keep enemies pinned down thanks to their suppressive fire, but need to shot with controlled breath and are subject to more physical forces thanks to the long travel of the bullets.

The general feel aims for just enough realism to sell the aesthetic and force tactical play, but avoids the parts of military sims that are cumbersome or produce long bouts of boredom and dead air. It’s a game for people who want to play soldier but don’t care enough for accuracy to engage in the bit where you walk for 20 minutes to be shot out of nowhere.

Theoretically, that’s me. And I’d even be able to look past the toxicity of the community (you sadly get used to this playing any game online), if it wasn’t for how terrible the game ran. Even on the lowest settings, at low resolution, Insurgency stutters and performs inconsistently. This isn’t even when things are going on–in otherwise quiet situations the framerate will go from entirely stable stuttering. I’m not sure what causes it (though texture streaming and anti-aliasing seem to be big problems), but what I am sure of is that there are some serious technical problems with Insurgency and a real lack of optimization.

Between the thematic problems, the community, the tech problems, a general lack of resources to properly learn the game and the unforgiving pace of rounds, Insurgency: Sandstorm is difficult to recommend. You might be able to find a server with a decent group, and outside resources might eventually help you understand the core tactics better, but Insurgency is going to make you WORK for every inch of progress. Which is a shame, since the tactical options and weapon modeling genuinely feel great. The core of the game is solid, and with some work it’s possible that Insurgency: Sandstorm could become a great shooter, if one that still carries a lot of baggage. As it is now, I can’t say that’s true.