Door Kickers 2: Task Force North Review: The Most Strategic Tactical Combat

When a terrorist group takes hostages and starts making threats, you send in the best special operations team on hand. This group is large, owns several compounds, and knows the environment well. Your team must use every resource, firearm, and position possible to achieve your objectives. Success is an uphill battle but eventually you figure out how to bring everyone home safely.

Door Kickers 2 gives you a tactical experience like no other. The real-time progression and reaction of enemy AI prevents you from getting complacent. Various options for equipment and soldier types give you a myriad ways to approach a situation. Missions are more difficult than they appear, resulting in lots of trial-and-error and a steep learning curve. Master the strategic element and eventually no mission is too great for your team.

Door Kickers 2 is available on PC for USD 24.99.

When a mission starts, checking on your team is crucial.

Story – Terrorists in the Area

Door Kickers 2 doesn’t have an actual plot but it does have an overarching narrative. Terrorists are causing trouble and it’s up to a group of special forces to stop them. What the terrorists are up to depends on the map you choose. Sometimes you are flushing them out or rescuing hostages. There may be time limits or VIPs that you must retrieve but missions largely play out the same way.

Just like Terminus: Zombie Survivors, the story isn’t that important. It reinforces the fact that you are in a dangerous environment and people want you gone. That’s why preparation is important, planning is crucial, and caution is the best approach. You aren’t playing with amateurs and even your veterans can die on missions. That’s the setting in every mission and there isn’t a strong cohesive story.

Every mission has familiar beats; terrorists are causing trouble.

While there are campaigns where you continuously work towards an objective, defeating the terrorists is always the goal. Once they are gone, the fight continues in another area with new parameters to keep in mind. The real draw of Door Kickers 2 is how you plan to take out the terrorists.

Gameplay – Planning the Terrorist Takedown

Unlike FPS shooters such as Hellbreach: Vegas, gameplay is from a top-down perspective. You place your team at predetermined spots and then map out their initial actions. Every member of the team has a role and you can configure their equipment for the upcoming mission. Finalise your team and then decide how everyone moves. As the situation changes, you may need to stop and readjust your plan based on what you know.

Changing equipment before a mission could be crucial.

It is possible to do some perfect runs with initial planning if you are an expert. But it’s more likely that you pause and take stock after a firefight. Is anyone injured and do you know if more enemies are ahead? Do you slowly advance or bust a door down for surprise? There are many factors to consider and you might be caught off guard with an incorrect analysis. However, even the best plans crumble due to bad luck and unknown variables.

Being cautious and doing your best to keep everyone alive is a thrilling challenge. You don’t have complete control but you must plan for every possibility. You get an overview of the floor plan to let you know if you need special equipment. But that doesn’t include enemy locations that are hidden. Adding layer upon layer of tactical intrigue is something Door Kickers 2 does better than many games.

You know the layout, but not every enemy location.

Tactics – Mapping Your Moves

Positioning your soldiers and having them navigate through rooms sounds easy. What makes this difficult is that you must do this without knowing what’s on the other side. Even in a large open space, you have blind spots to account for and numbers you can’t overcome. Your team consists of trained professionals but they are still humans who get hurt by bullets. This means every decision you make matters or someone gets left behind.

Every move could prove fatal and you must be careful. Going in guns blazing can work but it’s often a horrible decision. Directing your soldiers and considering their environment is a key tactic and it makes you think. It also makes you aware of any failures and teaches you what to do. Trial-by-error is how you learn but you can’t get complacent. Even if you know what’s around the corner, that doesn’t mean your enemies react exactly like they did before.

You can plan everyone’s movements before the chaos starts.

Changing your approach means your enemies react to your new actions. They may not catch you sneaking around the door but they may see you through a window. That sends bullets your way that you weren’t expecting and forces another rethink. Considering your tactics and trying new methods pushes you unlike any other game. This also means that Door Kickers 2 isn’t an easy game to master and you will struggle.

Difficulty – Steep Learning Curve

Door Kickers 2’s tactical genius comes at the cost of high difficulty. There is a tutorial to run you through the basics but it’s easy to miss a soldier’s equipment. It’s not obvious how and when certain advanced movement options will help you. Sometimes your soldiers don’t respond to your callsigns the way you imagined. Your soldiers may not turn to face certain directions without your prompting.

You can’t shoot what you can’t see.

It’s easy to get started playing Door Kickers 2 but without significant amounts of practice, you will struggle. Soldiers will fall, doors won’t open the way you like, and you find out that climbing through windows takes time. Every failure gets your soldiers gunned down, making it hard to win and prompting a restart. There are many factors you won’t consider until you are negatively affected. That raises the difficulty and forces you to spend time trying out new tactics.

Part of the fun comes from experimenting but it is tough. You will run into lots of failures until you find the right solution. As rewarding as success may be, failing may discourage you from continuing for a while. There’s little gameplay variation other than new mission types meaning you can’t get away from tactics. It’s draining when you can’t successfully save everyone or keep getting gunned down at the start.

The tutorial doesn’t always say why something is helpful.

Audio & Visual – Top-Down View

The visuals in Door Kickers 2 are seen from a top-down perspective but capture realism effectively. It is difficult to tell soldiers apart at first glance though their information cards are clear. Every soldier’s line-of-sight clearly displays what’s in their view but notably, doesn’t show much beyond said view. The details of the environment become clearer only when you have vision, a good representation of working in the unknown.

There isn’t much audio outside of gunfights and order confirmations. The background music is quiet enough that you barely notice it. What grabs your attention is unexpected gunfire or soldiers yelling that someone is down. The audio is clear enough that you know what people are saying. There are times when there is too much gunfire that you can’t hear, but that is expected on a battlefield.

Door Kickers 2 was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by the publisher from KillHouse Games.