Enlisted

Enlisted is a free-to-play squad-based MMO shooter from Gaijin Entertainment (makers of War Thunder) set in the key battles of World War II. You don't control a single soldier — you command an entire squad of AI soldiers and switch between them in real time. When one dies, you instantly take control of another. Core gameplay spans infantry combat, tank warfare, and aircraft piloting, all happening simultaneously on the same map with hundreds of players.

The squad mechanic is what makes it different from every other WW2 shooter. Your squad follows you, takes cover, fires at enemies, and holds positions. You choose squad composition — riflemen, machine gunners, snipers, engineers, flamethrower operators — and equip each soldier individually. Losing your best soldier mid-battle hurts, but you keep fighting through the rest of your squad instead of staring at a respawn timer.

Weapons, uniforms, and vehicle capabilities are modeled on historical data. The game covers major campaigns — Moscow, Berlin, Normandy, Stalingrad, Tunisia, Pacific — each with period-accurate equipment. You unlock new squads, weapons, and vehicles by progressing through campaign-specific tech trees.

The first 5-10 hours are fast-paced. Matchmaking puts you into large-scale battles immediately, and the tutorial is minimal — you learn by fighting. By day 3-4, you'll have multiple squads with specialized roles. Engineers can build spawn points, sandbag positions, and anti-tank hedgehogs, adding a construction layer to the combat.