Tactical co-op shooter Squad is free to play, but not for long

Squad has been around for a long time. After spending years in Early Access, attracting an enthusiastic player base in the meantime, it came out in 1.0 in 2020 and has continued to receive updates, big and small, over the years since. Though games like Hell Let Loose, Arma 3, and Insurgency: Sandstorm also provide similarly tense tactical online battles, Squad remains one of the best war games available. If you're curious to give it a try, now's a great time, as it's just received a massive update and an accompanying free weekend on Steam.

Squad's recent 9.0 update represents one of the biggest changes that's come to the project to date. Most noticeable is that creator Offworld has moved Squad to a new engine, with the entire game now running on Unreal Engine 5.5 and using its Chaos Physics and Metasounds for improved sound and physics. 9.0 also introduces a new lighting system that, per the update's Steam description, "lays the foundation for expanded lighting and weather features in the future."

Offworld is showing off Squad's new engine with a remade version of its Al-Basrah map that's bigger and more detailed than before. It's also introduced a commendation system meant to reward you for being a positive presence in-game and let newcomers easily locate helpful and reliable team members.

There's also a wealth of smaller changes and additions in 9.0, including tweaks to many of the game's factions and its firearm design, improved vehicle performance, updates to the skirmish mode, new weapon skin packs and emotes, as well as a ton of bug fixes and performance upgrades.

Squad is available to play for free from now until Monday September 15 on Steam. It's also available with a 60% discount that brings its price down to $19.99 USD / £15.99. Grab a copy or jump into a game right here.

Otherwise, you can find more like Squad with our lists of the best FPS games and best simulation games on PC. If you are planning to try it out this weekend, though, you should head over to our community Discord server to find other players to group up with.