Enlisted isn't a standard shooter where you spawn, die, respawn, repeat. You control a squad — a small group of soldiers you command directly, switching between them as they fall — and your progress is locked to whichever historical campaign you're currently playing. That structure trips up a lot of new players in their first few hours. Here's how squads, campaigns, and weapons actually work, and what to do differently from day one.
Understand squads before you touch a weapon
In Enlisted's Squad mode, you don't control one soldier — you control an entire squad of a few soldiers at once. When your active soldier dies, you switch to the next member of that squad while the AI keeps managing the rest. In a standard battle you bring three infantry squads plus one vehicle (tank or plane), so a single death is rarely the end of your round the way it would be in most shooters.
This matters for how you play: don't throw your active soldier into a bad angle just because "you" would die and respawn instantly elsewhere. Losing a soldier still costs you a body from that squad's roster for the match, and depleted squads mean fewer options in a firefight that drags on. Treat each soldier's life with a bit more weight than you would in a typical arcade shooter.
Pick a campaign and stay there
Enlisted is split into separate campaigns — historical fronts like Moscow, Normandy, Tunisia, Berlin, and others — that function almost like separate games layered on shared mechanics. Each campaign tracks its own progression: unlocking a squad or weapon in one campaign does not carry over to another, and the Allies and Axis sides within a campaign are developed completely separately.
For a new player, this means the single most important early decision is picking one campaign and one faction and sticking with them until you have a functional loadout. Bouncing between campaigns to "try everything" just means you're perpetually undergeared everywhere, facing players with unlocked automatic weapons and upgraded squads while you're still on starting gear. Pick whichever era's aesthetic and vehicles interest you most — that decision matters more for your enjoyment than any small balance difference between fronts.
How weapon unlocks actually work
Weapons in Enlisted are purchased per-unit, not as a permanent squad-wide unlock. When you buy a weapon, you're buying one physical copy that gets assigned to a single soldier — if you want three soldiers in a squad carrying the same upgraded rifle, you need to buy that weapon three separate times. This catches new players off guard constantly, since it feels different from typical shooter progression where an unlock applies account-wide.
Before spending your early silver or campaign points on weapons:
- Use Practice Mode first. It lets you test weapon handling, recoil, and even vehicle controls (tanks and planes) without spending resources, so you're not gambling currency on a gun that doesn't suit your playstyle.
- Equip your squad leader and a couple of key soldiers with upgraded weapons before spreading purchases across the whole squad. A squad with two well-armed soldiers and several with starting rifles is often more effective early than one where currency was split too thin.
- Prioritize one squad role (assault, machine-gunner, or rifleman-heavy) rather than trying to build all squad types at once — it gets you to a genuinely competitive loadout faster.
Combat tips that hold up in real matches
- Use cover constantly and move between it in short bursts. Enlisted's engagement ranges and lethality punish standing in the open far more than staying static in a foxhole.
- Learn each squad type's actual job. Assault squads close distance and clear buildings, machine-gun squads hold lines and suppress, and support/anti-tank squads exist to deal with vehicles — using a squad for the wrong job wastes its strengths.
- Don't ignore the tutorial and Practice Mode, even if you've played other shooters. Enlisted's ballistics, squad-switching, and vehicle controls are distinct enough from typical shooters that skipping this step costs you your first several matches.
- Watch your squad size relative to the enemy's. A squad down to one or two soldiers is a liability in an open push — pull back and let it regroup rather than feeding remaining members into a losing fight.
Final tips before your next deployment
The fastest way to feel competent in Enlisted is to stop treating it like a normal shooter: commit to one campaign and faction, spend Practice Mode time before spending currency, and build weapon loadouts around a couple of key soldiers rather than the whole squad at once. Once squad management clicks, the campaign-specific progression stops feeling like a grind and starts feeling like the thing that makes Enlisted's battles different from everything else in the genre.
