Firefighting Simulator - The Squad

Firefighting Simulator - The Squad is a co-op-focused simulation that puts you inside a US city fire department, responding to calls that range from kitchen blazes to multi-story infernos. It sits firmly in the 'serious sim' bracket rather than arcade territory: pressure management on hoses, coordinating ventilation cuts, and reading fire spread patterns matter far more than twitch reflexes. If you came expecting fast-paced action, the pacing will feel slow. If you came expecting a system that rewards deliberate play, you will find one. The core loop revolves around arriving on scene, deploying hoses at correct pressure, venting smoke to improve visibility and slow fire spread, and pulling victims to safety before structural conditions deteriorate. The sim models fire propagation room by room, so reading a building layout and deciding where to cut ventilation holes versus where to push water is a genuine tactical decision. Alone, juggling hose management, victim search, and active suppression is a grind that exposes the AI teammates as fairly rudimentary. The game is honest about this, though: the title literally has 'The Squad' in it, and the co-op mode with two to four human players is where the mechanics click into something cohesive and genuinely stressful in a satisfying way. For a strategy-and-sim player used to systems layering on systems, the depth here is narrower than a full city-builder or grand-strategy title, but it is consistent. Every piece of equipment has a defined role, hose lines have drag and pressure physics, and learning the truck layout so you can grab gear efficiently under time pressure has the same satisfying muscle-memory build as learning hotkeys in a complex RTS. The tutorial is practical and paced well enough that newcomers to the genre can follow it without feeling talked down to, though it does not cover every edge case you will encounter mid-call. Steam's community guides fill that gap reasonably well. On the downside, mission variety does plateau. The city environment looks competent but not remarkable, and after enough hours the call types start to repeat in ways that expose the limited scenario scripting. Solo play with AI partners is functional but not compelling, and the AI will occasionally stand idle at moments that would give a real incident commander a headache. There is also no deep mod ecosystem to speak of, which means the content ceiling is what the developer shipped, and post-launch updates have been incremental rather than transformative. The 81 percent positive Steam rating reflects a player base that largely came in with the right expectations and got what they wanted. If you have a regular group of two to four friends who enjoy methodical co-op and can coordinate over voice chat, this delivers a distinct experience that few games attempt. The firefighting systems are specific enough to feel authentic without demanding real-world certification knowledge. Solo players looking for long-term depth or modded content replayability will hit the ceiling faster than they would like.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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