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Caliber - Squad Based Free To Play Shooter

Looking for something to get into for a little bit? Want to shoot some NPCs or players? Maybe group up with friends in 4 player co-op action? How about some some solid gunplay and tactics?

Maybe you are one of those folks that really like to unlock new characters, toys, and cosmetics to max out your progress?

How about a co-op challenge or a ranked grind experience?

Caliber… could be for you! It’s free and on Steam, too. You could skip the review and just give it a try, but if you’re not sure then read on!

Squad Role Call

Caliber focuses on being part of a Squad of 4. You will choose an Operator from one of four specializations: Assault, Support, Sniper, or Medic. Each Operator has their own unique weapons and abilities because, in this day and age, it’s hard to sell content to make your own character. Money is made by selling your characters!

You have to queue up as one of the roles, and if you queue up for multiple roles then you’ll get into a match fast. You won’t be forced into a role you don’t want to play though.

A quick run down of the roles!

Assault

Assaults are expected to lead the charge. Most Operators have an assault rifle, but there are some short range weapons like submachine guns in the mix too.

They are high mobility, high damage, and very highly super dangerous.

 

 

Support

Supports are typically carrying heavy equipment. They don’t put out as much damage as the assault, but they have quite the effective range. It’s not all machine guns though as you’ll find shield and pistol combos among the ranks. Rocket launchers too!

Like all classes, there’s a diverse pool of abilities so it’s difficult to summarize. Support abilities tend to be quite impactful when compared to the assault class.

Sniper

Snipers have superior range and damage compared to the other classes, but this leaves them extremely vulnerable up close.

There is a selection of abilities which focus on detecting the enemy but, like other operators, you can find some diversity. One operator even has a Mortar. Jinkies!

Medic

Medics typically have short range weapon options. Their trick is keeping everyone in the squad healthy. This kind of dependency and reliance on the medic really makes them feel important and valuable.

How they heal the team is different for each operator. Generally you want to be behind your allies and assisting them.

Unlocking New Operators

Operators are the characters you pick and play as. They each have unique primary and secondary weapons, along with a unique support weapon and an ability. Oh and a unique passive, too. We’ll get to that next!

You can unlock new operators for free just by playing the game. To help you score enough in-game currency, you can complete the plentiful daily and weekly quests. Leveling up the account will also grant you rewards. Basically, unlocking the characters you want to play is no trouble at all.

However, you will also need to level up those Operators using that same currency. There are a few choices in what you can do when leveling up your Operator. Giving them more health, more stamina, more ammo, or tweaking how their abilities and support weapons work. This is where the real resource sink is and to get the max level takes time. It does give you something to work towards though.

Every operator has a passive skill and, by leveling up that operator, you will eventually unlock different ranks of that skill. By unlocking the skill, you can then equip the passive on other Operators.

You can equip up to four passive abilities on an Operator once you have reached the maximum level with that Operator.

So if you’re struggling with stamina, find some passives which help reduce stamina loss or increase stamina gain. Level those Operators up, and equip them on your main Operator. It does give a reason to play other Operators and make it meaningful.

This does mean investing a lot of currency into characters you might not care about playing at all to unlock the max rank of the passives. Each passive has 3 ranks and unlocking that third rank requires level 12 on the Operator. The max level is 15 and each level will cost you progressively more credits.

Let’s say you have one character you want to play in each role. That’s four characters. Then you want to unlock 4 passives for each character and they all happen to be different characters. That’s 16 characters you will need to level to 12 to get what you need optimally.

Fortunately, it doesn’t feel so bad to head into PvP even if you don’t have a character and the passives you want leveled up. Even so, I imagine it will deter a few people from playing against players while knowing they don’t have the advantages that other players might have over them.

PvE Modes

 

And now a rundown of the co-op modes!

Point Sweep

This is your entry level cooperative mode. You play predefined missions and will probably have a breeze with it. One of the big issues with the missions is that once you’ve played them, you know them. There isn’t any randomness to the AI’s behavior. The same enemies spawn in the same locations and move in the same direction every time you play, which can feel repetitive. Because… well, it IS repetitive.

Onslaught

Onslaught offers slightly more randomness. You are dropped into a small map and must complete various objectives that are stringed one after another. Once you’ve completed enough objectives, you will be asked to evacuate in a last stand type event.

Special Operation

Special Operation is like Point Sweep but on hardcore mode. It removes outlines from enemies, friendly fire really hurts, and reviving allies leaves them with a reduced maximum health penalty. It’s a challenge and thus highly recommended to be mindful of what Operators you bring into the mission.

PvP Modes

Showdown

Three rounds to capture a neutral area or kill them all. You can be revived, but you won’t respawn.

Hacking

An attack and defend style mode, but otherwise the same as Showdown. You only have one life per round, but you can pick allies up while they’re wounded.

Annihilation

Annihilation is the mode with respawn. It’s the first to 30 points. Killing an enemy will grant you a point and you can gain bonus points for executing them! Oh yeah, there are executions in the game and lots of execution animations to purchase! Some with just the in game currency.

Ranked

There is also a ranked mode and each season is different for it. Currently, the ranked mode is “Threshold.” What is “Threshold?” That’s the next mode to explain that involves both enemy players and enemy bots!

PvPvE

The objective of Threshold, the PvPvE mode, is to get to 5000 points and destroy the enemy Anti-Air system. Between you and the enemy team is a third faction. Plenty of enemies will continually spawn to impede both teams as they fight towards the center of the map. It’s all about capturing and holding ground.

You can of course fight through the hordes of AI enemies and try to slow the enemy team down.

You can also capture the enemy team’s “Cache” for some extra points.

You can also also neutralize special officer bots for points.

Getting points unlocks a bomb for you to plant on the enemy AA system.

The mode seems quite complicated but honestly, just jump right in and have fun figuring it out. You’ll be fine!

Other General Gameplay Notes

Conserve Ammo

Ammo conservation needs to be considered. If you fire recklessly, you will quickly deplete your ammo. There are ways to restore it but there’s a healthy balance. You can get your ammo back through finding ammo crates, bringing some extra ammo boxes in your loadout, or relying on teammates to drop ammo boxes if they have them selected as part of THEIR loadout before entering a mission.

Watch your Stamina

Stamina is what you use to sprint and what is consumed when using abilities. It can be tempting to sprint everywhere but stamina regenerates very slowly. Though there are some things you can do to negate this!

Limited Revives

If you keep getting knocked out, you’ll eventually run out of lives. The medic isn’t the only role that can revive and everyone carries special revive sticks. How many revive sticks you bring is going to matter in the co-operative mode and limited life PvP modes. There are PvP modes with unlimited respawns and those tend to be more popular.

If you do have a limited amount of revive sticks, try not to be the person on the team who ends up eating all of them.

 

 

Final Notes

Look, it’s not groundbreaking. But it IS Free to Play. To be honest, it’s a pretty cool Free to Play squad-based game with some decent focus on co-op. That, I applaud.

Would I recommend Caliber? Easily. Why? Because it’s Free to Play. You’ll lose about an hour of your time figuring out whether it’s worth playing more or not.

I hope this review, as always, helps!

And a big thank you to those who played the game with me to help write this review too! Please come join the Discord if you would like to get involved!

Author: Inuki
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