Door Kickers 2: Task Force North (PC)

Possibly due to reading into the details on Operation Neptune’s Spear and an ever-present desire to go back and play Rogue Spear, I had this urge to play something mimicking the tactics of a spec ops unit this past summer. Don’t ask why, those were my best guesses. For some reason, I’ve always had an affinity towards the precise orchestration of something so horrible that can oftentimes be argued to be necessary. That and if I were to talk about Six Days in Fallujah again in detail, I’d end up buried at sea.

Still in Early Access since it appeared on Steam back in 2020, the purposefully difficult real-time (active pause) tactics title is already quite expansive. However, as you’ll currently see on the main menu, there is a lack of a campaign. With more than 70 missions available from the word go, an editor to create your own little fortresses to penetrate, a random generation option to give you endless levels (kind of), and the Steam Workshop support, “endless” covers only half of it. Plus multiplayer. As an expansion and update on the original 2D top-down title from KillHouse Games’ 2014 release, there is plenty to enjoy and at times things to desire.

It is still very mouse-based, you’ll draw lines of action and proceed to redraw them when a barricaded shooter is deep in a room and you’ve got an open breach point they’re firing out of. Set in MadeUpIstan, the setting is very much the fictionalized location of America’s last 20-ish years, with Door Kickers 2 adopting the modern understanding of the word Jihad rather quickly. Currently, with three separate squads, you’ll bring democracy, McDonald’s, and a Starbucks to every extremist’s family member you don’t blow up as you breach the familial compounds. You’ll also be rescuing hostages, defusing bombs, abducting targets, extracting informants, and killing with indiscriminate power.

The missions themselves start simple enough, basically puzzles with the illusion of tactics. Then it becomes a question of “How do I blast my way through that door without losing someone?” Rated similarly to how many mobile games are done now, and in fact I think the first Door Kickers made it to mobile, your success isn’t just completing the objectives but also doing so without being injured, downing a civilian, and getting every EKIA. I’ll admit, some of them are pretty hard: “Bomb Threat,” from the campaign “Indian Country,” is really difficult to do without a hostage being killed.

Some missions are a simple case of taking your time when you are afforded it, then some are not so lenient on you. Stopping executions within a short time frame can be particularly challenging, not least because a large portion of Door Kickers 2 leans on the Hollywood idea of these sorts of special operations. Invoking the idea of small teams doing ridiculously powerful and sometimes scary military operations with ease and efficiency. Some of it is gamified/filmified though it isn’t hard to realize what real-world CQB tactics work in given situations.

It also doesn’t help that while there are some features available within Door Kickers that are absolutely worth knowing, the keybindings don’t always tell you the full story. For example, right-clicking on a Ranger, CIA operator, or otherwise and dragging tells them where to look, but if you press Shift as you do it they’ll maintain that sightline until you say otherwise, though if you press CTRL, they’ll hold that line until you drag to move them again. It is also very rare you’ll look at a tooltip on a loading/pause menu, so if you press Shift+F the entire squad asks for permission on shots from there on.

This seems nitpicky, but something like that really matters. Some levels already in-game and player-made offer only seconds between an execution or bomb detonating. I either said it of SWAT 4 and similar tactics titles in the editorial I did in September or I did in a SWAt 4 review but split seconds matter. With a new squad fresh from Quantico or wherever it is they mention a lot in NCIS, each squad member’s marksmanship, speed of throwing H.E. or other equipment, and something called “assault shooting” which affects aiming won’t be as good as a highly used and well-skilled squad.

Admittedly, that last part sounds obvious, a trained squad will of course do better. A great portion of their direction comes down to your skill using the tools provided, but the chance shots across the map and responsiveness while under fire give the team a better chance at survival. One group that I struggle to find their purpose in fights is the Nowheraki SWAT; Local police and civilian militia rolled into one to undertake an urban guerrilla battle. The current missions available with them as your default squad mean they are far from as skilled as your Ranger units and CIA operators.

If it seems like I am trying to drag Door Kickers 2 down, I’m not. I’m trying to give context for and attempting to justify to myself why I’ve played more than 100 hours for a game that’s only supposed to take 20-30 hours currently. Anytime I’ve just had something on in the background, be it F1, wrestling, podcasts, or otherwise, I’ve found myself saying “Oh, I’ll stick Door Kickers on” and clear out a compound, rescue a hostage or two, and abduct a brown man that dresses like Fessel from Four Lions. There is simplicity and fun in its mechanics.

I say it is just drawing lines, and if you want to talk about it from a ground level, that’s all it is, but it tests how effective your plans are. Looking down from on high, you are effectively command back at base watching an operation play out and giving orders, orders on a plan that presumably in real-world situations you’d go through in briefing, this is just it playing out. The missions that I think really stood out were the “Deck of Cards” collection, particularly “Pair of Eights.” It is a normal street with the ground floor of some McMansions, and your job is to get two HVTs out safely with 10 Rangers available.

Again, real world it would be 40+ operators with a support team securing a perimeter, dedicated teams for each compound, extensive knowledge of the compounds, possible simultaneous breaching, and other details. I trim the breaching team down to a full assault force split into two teams, with the remaining three being one sniper and two support class units pulling security. Though it might not be entirely realistic, I always push forward with that idea of speed and violence once I’ve initiated my first attacking posture. That isn’t always available to do, as some levels are about quick reaction and an ambush on you.

I will admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the quick reaction or heavy stealth runs with the CIA forces. “Death Dealers” in the “Never See Never Be” portion of the missions is one example of that. With two undercover units and “Fergie” as she’s called, you are told to infiltrate a compound with heavy munitions stashed throughout. It sounds really simple, but it is a forced stealth mission as you try to disable multiple heavy arms that are guarded tighter than a nun’s chest of drawers because under her smalls she’s hiding something purple. So yeah, it is really difficult.

I like difficulty, and there are several difficult missions like “University Assault,” “Against The Odds,” “Bomb Threat,” “Speed is Life,” and “Maze Runners;” They are difficult and require planning, but not too much so. They all offer something a little bit different, but are drilled down to the same ideas: Get in, guns up, bad guys down, and secure the target. There is a nice flow starting out with the difficulty growing steadily, though it would be impossible to say it is perfect given my point in skipping the likes of “Death Dealers.”

I also think the use of the SWAT team could be expanded, offering more missions to give them “reps” and increase their stats. As most missions focus on the rangers and CIA unit, they feel under-served when it comes down to the simple act of both learning their skill set and increasing their prowess with their weapons. Sure, you can bring them along in place of the others, but I try to stick with what is suggested for each level.

As I’ve said already, I don’t hate Door Kickers 2, it would be weird if I did given that I’ve put so much time into it. However, I think there are rough edges around this gem of a “casual” game. The random generation mostly works from a general model, and that’s understandable, but it does mean after a while you’ve seen most of what Door Kickers 2 has to offer beyond its base levels. This is where the community holds up the continual-play thing.

Ultimately, despite its Early Access-ness, Door Kickers 2: Task Force North is a fantastic top-down tactical game that fits that Mini-Metro, Mini-Motorways mold of a “casual” game. There is just as much death though. There could be a greater balance to which forces are used or where sometimes, and random generation could offer something a little more for the larger maps, but they don’t outright harm an otherwise fantastic challenge. With a comprehensive level editor (that could be a bit more user-friendly), even after you’ve completed the base levels and the random generation, there is plenty to play beyond that.