The phrase “underrated” gets thrown around a lot these days. Not just when talking about an underrated FPS campaign being debated. A first person shooter, or FPS campaigns are some of the hardest to get right. For every Call of Duty: World at War, there is a Black Ops 7. For every Halo 3 there is a Halo 5.
Unfortunately for those of us who prefer compelling single player experiences of Taskforce 141 or a delta force team, the continued rise of multiplayer modes and extraction shooters means that campaigns are suffering. Call of Duty has the most obvious display of this decline. But there is an FPS that seems to focus on multiplayer but has arguable the most underrated FPS campaign ever.
Delta Force Should Never Be Slept On
Delta Force is a rebooted, free-to-play multiplayer extraction shooter, which with just that sentence tells you everything you need to know. The game itself is not bad at all, but even at 27 I am now considered old-school in gaming terms and would much rather have a compelling story, the more grounded in reality the better.
Grounded is an understatement for this underrated FPS campaign. What is actually a free PvE DLC that feels less like bonus content and more like an actual reason for a game to exist. It puts you in the boots of a Delta Force operator during one of the most infamous modern military operations, and unlike most shooters, it doesn’t immediately try to make you feel like a health-regenerating superhero for it. Delta Force takes you to Mogadishu, right into the events of Black Hawk Down.
It starts, as in real life, fairly simple. Almost suspiciously simple. Get in, grab the target, get out. Clean, clinical, efficient, everything you would expect from special forces. This is kind of objective that games have trained you to complete on autopilot. And then, just like the real operation it’s based on, everything collapses in on itself.
What follows isn’t a power fantasy, it’s a slow, grinding descent into chaos where plans unravel, support disappears and survival becomes the only real objective left on the table. There isn’t a single moment when you feel like you aren’t on the backfoot, and if you have ever read Seal Team Six by the late Howard Wasdin, you will understand that this is as true to reality as possible. Even before these events, the whole US operation felt hesitant.
Where a lot of modern shooters would start layering in spectacle, lens flares or bailing you out with scripted hero moments, Delta Force doesn’t. There’s no safety net here. No mid-mission loadout swaps, no convenient ammo dumps, no sudden reminder that you’re the main character. You pick your gear at the start, largely in the dark of what is awaiting you and you live (or more often, die…a lot) with that decision. It’s less about building the perfect loadout and more about dealing with the consequences of an imperfect one and conserving EVERY shot…I cannot emphasise this enough.
And it is unforgiving. Almost aggressively so. A couple of well-placed shots and you’re done. Not “downed,” not crawling around waiting for a revive or health to regenerate, just done. Back to the start. Again. And again. There’s something almost stubborn about it, like the game refusing to compromise on the realism it wants to convey. You’ll fail within sight of the objective more times than you’ll want to admit (trust me on this) and each restart chips away at that initial confidence the game lures you in with.
This Most Underrated FPS Campaign Comes Straight From Recent History
What makes it land, though, is how seriously it treats its source material. This isn’t just loosely inspired by Black Hawk Down, it is deeply rooted in it. The structure, the names, the moments – they’re all here. This also includes the actions of Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart, which the game presents with a level of restraint, respect and reverence that most developers probably wouldn’t have the patience or tact for. There’s no over-scoring, no exaggerated hero framing. Just the weight of what’s happening, presented plainly.
And that’s where it hits hardest. If you’re familiar with the real events, there’s an underlying tension that never really lets up. You know how bad it gets. The game knows you know. And instead of trying to rewrite that into something more “fun,” it leans into the discomfort of it. Holding a position with weapons not suited for this situation, ammo running dry, trying to cover angles that are impossible to cover, watching things fall apart in slow motion—it’s less about winning and more about enduring for as long as the game allows you to.
My experience of this moment led me to hearing that final click of my empty M9, realising that at best I could melee one maybe two more enemies before dying. The game allows for that breathing space of total realisation.
MATT – EDITOR-IN-cHIEF
For anyone interested in military history or who remember it, there are small touches that stick with you. Lines of dialogue that aren’t there for dramatic effect but because they were actually said. Situations that don’t feel designed so much as recreated. Even the quieter moments, when things briefly settle before inevitably getting worse, feel intentional.
Hearing the near verbatim conversation between the two brave snipers as they request permission to save the downed chopper pilot, knowing there is no chance of reinforcements is almost chilling. Regardless of your opinions on war in general or that war in particular, their sacrifice should never be understated and are handled with the great dignity in this underrated FPS campaign.
Why this underrated FPS campaign is most important?
Many people, myself included, see video games as an art form. Art at its core should be representative of something. In a time where games about war get “Mature Content Warnings”, it can be easy to forget that, for better or worse, these events are real life. For gamers with that interest in military history, the Delta Force DLC features the most underrated FPS campaign that modern Call of Duty could only dream of recreating.
How Does The Game Actually Play?
Mechanically, it’s a throwback in the best and worst ways. Gunfights are slow, deliberate and brutally punishing. You can’t just sprint through encounters and expect things to work out. Positioning matters. Timing matters. Every shot matters, mostly because you never seem to have enough of them. By the end of most missions, you’re scraping a handful of shots together.
Visually, it does a lot of heavy lifting without drawing too much attention to itself. The Unreal Engine 5 tech is there, sure, but it’s used to sell the setting rather than distract from it. Mogadishu feels dense, dusty and claustrophobic in a way that complements the gameplay instead of overshadowing it. It’s not trying to be pretty, it’s trying to feel real.
The strange thing is, for something this punishing and this specific in what it’s trying to do, it’s also completely free. No catch, no weird monetisation hook tied to it, just there, waiting to be played. And even if you bounce off the multiplayer (which, fair enough), this campaign alone is worth the time.
The Most Underrated FPS Campaign Ever…
Not because it’s fun in the traditional sense, but because it’s willing to be something most shooters like Call of Duty aren’t anymore: uncomfortable, deliberate and completely uninterested in making you feel invincible.
Keep an eye out on Frowned Upon for an upcoming feature about the absurdity of mature content warnings in FPS campaigns like Battlefield and Call of Duty.
Cheers and comment down below.
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