Door Kickers Review

This review is dedicated to Officer Dominik Peters, irresponsibly sent under the bullet of his own sniper and doomed to inevitable death with a significant loss level. Sorry, colleague, it was too much fun to think through all the details of that plan.

However, thinking through it all will still be necessary because this is Door Kickers – a new tactical strategy about the everyday life of the police for those who miss the times of the SWAT series and the classic Rainbow Six. And don’t laugh that it’s indie: there will be no indulgence, and mistakes are just as painful.

The first squad enters from the rear and waits for the commander’s signal. The second group clears the entrance and bursts in through the main entrance. The stunned enemy fires randomly and… takes down four of our guys who confidently stormed the building without preparation. Restart. Okay, let’s try again, but this time a flashbang is thrown into the open door first. We didn’t consider the possible reinforcement from the adjacent room. Restart. We enter under the cover of a shield, surround and crush the enemy. Again, not quite right – a hostage dies in the shootout. Restart.

The restart button will become your best friend here, especially if you fall for the simple interface and uncomplicated design. Understanding Door Kickers is really incredibly easy: trajectories for each operative are drawn with a single click of the mouse button, and on the prepared line, you can quickly assign various actions like changing weapons or throwing grenades. After taking off the tactical pause, the dummy soldiers rush forward according to the instructions. They shoot automatically when they see enemies, so there’s no need to worry about such details.

It is much more difficult to learn how to properly use the available techniques. Most likely, even in your training, your plan will not work right away, which will require endless adjustments, ordering your charges to look around in time, use fiber optic cable, flank the enemy, and cover each other. However, you can still fall into a trap even with coordinated teamwork, because the placement of terrorists on the map is always random, and they themselves are not fools.

The key to the success of the operation is also the correct choice of equipment. If your inner tactical genius is outraged by another failure of a flawless maneuver, it is worth turning to the preparation screen. There, you will discover that each soldier is assigned a certain rank and class, determining their arsenal. At first, it is limited to a few pistols, but they are soon supplemented with assault rifles, shotguns, police shields, and body armor. In addition, in the adjacent menu, all classes can be upgraded: the choice of skills is quite modest, but the points spent on improving reaction will surely pay off during the next mission.

The variety of missions forces you to shuffle equipment options – the types of operations differ not only in their ultimate goal, but also in approach. You will quickly learn not to blow up doors next to hostages, to do everything possible to reach a ticking bomb, and not to hesitate during a raid on a drug lab, where evidence evaporates with every passing second.

The developers themselves have prepared over a hundred tasks, and quantity here is clearly not a substitute for quality. Despite the gradual increase in difficulty, the player will almost immediately after a short training start grasping their head in attempts to develop a suitable strategy and howl like a wolf, repeatedly falling into the clutches of cunning randomness. For the most persistent, there are mini-achievements, a campaign mode, and a level editor with Steam Workshop support.

It is essential to neutralize the bomb under cover, as militants will definitely gather in the shooting hall.

It is difficult to cling to anything in this case, but small flaws are still present against the backdrop of the aforementioned beauty. Squads occasionally lose any receptivity to orders, forget to shoot, and get stuck in doors in a huddle – no doubt, it’s the first day at work. Enemies behave similarly, randomly cutting circles in the far corner of the map.

Fortunately, the current state of the game is not final. Within a week after leaving early access, it received two massive patches, and the developers plan to continue actively supporting their project. For example, in the foreseeable future, opponents will become smarter so that problematic situations are not solved by repeating the same tactics until victory, as it is now. And then, who knows, maybe the multiplayer will catch up.

As of today, Door Kickers looks very promising. Filling an empty niche, it offers tons of content, friendly mechanics, and – most importantly – an incredibly interesting gaming experience.