Video Game Previews 2021 – Intruder (Tactical Shooter)

Intruder is a very hard core tactical shooter and I mean very hard core. There is no kill feed, there are no hit markers, and there are no in game messages telling you something has happened. You must rely on communication and coordination with your teammates to pull off a victory.

Intruder builds off of, or I should say strips down, the well known formula in games like Counter Strike and Rainbow Six: Siege. The game has two opposing teams. The guards defend the premises while the intruders strive to break in and steal the objectives successfully. This is where the similarities end.

There are no modern pop ups displaying relevant feedback. There is no kill feed in the game so you have no idea if anyone has been downed, both friendly and enemy alike. There are no hit indicators so you are never really sure if an enemy is actually dead. The game builds off of this by letting you fake your own death as a mechanic. There is only an in game proximity voice chat and a radio system. Both give your position away to any nearby enemy players.

What results from these limitations is a very challenging experience. You are never sure how many enemies are left or where they are without communicating and coordinating with your teammates. But even the act of communicating puts your team at a disadvantage. The game does include a hand gesture system to signal your teammates basic commands. While these limitations do create a more steep learning curve to the game, it feels refreshing to play. It strips down the game to bare essentials and doesn’t hold your hand and baby you around. If your teamwork and communication are poor, you will fail at this game. There are no mechanics in place to alleviate this.

Overall, Intruder is an interesting take on the tactical shooter genre. By making the game much more difficult it actually is more enjoyable to play. It’s definitely more frustrating when your team doesn’t work together or know what they are doing but it is much more rewarding when you do win. The only downside to this game is that the player base seems to be quite small so finding a lot of full matches may be a bit on the difficult side.