RAID: World War II

I went into this one hoping for something like a co-op Inglourious Basterds and came out the other side with a complicated relationship. RAID: World War II is a four-player objective-based shooter built almost entirely on the bones of the Payday series, which makes sense given that Lion Game Lion cut their teeth making Payday 2 DLC. The premise is genuinely fun on paper: four criminal misfits, freed from a Gestapo prison by British intelligence, run sabotage missions across wartime Europe while John Cleese delivers dry briefings via live-action cutscenes. Cleese brings an undeniable charm to the whole thing, and the Inglourious Basterds-lite tone at least distinguishes it from the po-faced WW2 shooters it launched alongside. The four classes, Recon, Assault, Insurgent, and Demolitions, form the acronym RAID, which is a cute touch. On paper they feel distinct: Assault soaks damage and heals teammates, Recon provides long-range covering fire with sniper rifles and SMGs, Insurgent leans into stealth and close-quarters shotgun work, and Demolitions is exactly what it sounds like, grenade loops and explosions everywhere. In practice the class identity is murkier. The enemy AI throws horde after horde at you, which heavily favours Assault builds with self-sustain, and the Recon class in particular struggles to find footing when a sniper rifle meets an endless tide of swarming Wehrmacht troops. A 2024 Resurgence update overhauled the proficiency system entirely, replacing the old passive-heavy skill trees with a more modular setup: one Warcry slot, one Boost slot, and eight talent slots, which does open up more interesting build variety than the launch version ever managed. Enemy spawn rates were also tuned down and bullet sponginess addressed. It is a meaningfully better game now than it was at launch, which is both a compliment and an indictment. The mission structure covers sabotage, assassination, bag-hauling, and convoy interception across a handful of European locations. Special enemies shake things up moderately: Spotters call in artillery with flares, Snipers pressure you from range, Officers buff surrounding troops into elite status and turn the battlefield into a frantic game of find-and-kill-the-armband, and Flamers apply terrifying pressure at close range. On Very Hard difficulty these specials arrive in clusters and the game stops being fun in a hurry if your squad is not coordinated. The RNG-driven objective and layout system adds some replay value, but the mission pool is thin enough that repetition sets in fast. There are also Operations, which are extended multi-mission campaigns with their own storylines, and those are where the game is at its most compelling. The honest problems are hard to paper over. The Diesel engine, inherited from Payday 2, means jittery framerates, occasional desyncs in multiplayer, and a visual presentation that looked dated at launch and looks ancient now. Stealth is theoretically an option but enemy awareness is tuned so aggressively that most missions collapse into loud firefights within two minutes, which removes a meaningful pillar of the class fantasy for Insurgent players. The player population is low, meaning matchmaking outside of a pre-made group is an exercise in patience. Solo play with AI teammates is essentially unplayable; the bots contribute almost nothing. If you already have three friends who liked Payday 2 and want something thematically different for a session or two, there is rough fun to be had here, especially post-Resurgence. If you are a solo player or someone who wants narrative weight, character arcs, or choices that matter, look elsewhere. This is a game that gestures at depth and delivers a corridor of Nazis. Monika, Scout Team