“Rising Storm 2: Vietnam” is a historical, multiplayer, team-based first-person tactical shooter developed by Tripwire Interactive and released in 2017. It is set during the US-led coalition’s intervention into the titular country’s 20 year civil war. It features 64 player matches on maps that are recreations of real-life battle sites of the Vietnam War as well as era-appropriate weaponry and factions.
RS2 is notorious for its difficulty. It places a ton of emphasis on realism in order to recreate the brutal and adrenaline-fueled chaos of war. It implements many mechanics that are often left out in shooter games such as bleeding, stamina, and a much lower health pool. For many, the first time playing consists of spawning, running for a bit, then dying for the entire match and debating whether or not to refund the game. However, once you learn the mechanics and how to work with them, RS2 becomes one of the most fun games to play, even six years after its release.
Even after official support for the game has ended, the community continues to run its own dedicated servers and create its own custom content, ensuring that you can have a consistently unique experience every time you boot up the game.
Moment to moment gameplay is tense and heart pounding. Unlike “Call of Duty” or “Battlefield” games where you can run-and-gun with reckless abandon as a one man army soaking up bullets like they’re airsoft pellets, RS2 forces you to slow down and pay attention to the situation on the battlefield. Every choice is a tactical one. From running to shooting to reloading to respawning, everything you do has consequences that you have to take into consideration. All it takes is a split second mistake to cost you your life, so you have to stay behind cover and at a distance from the enemy, only moving and attacking when it’s safe enough to do so.
However, even if you have reflexes like a fly and tactics like special forces, you’re still just one soldier out of many. Attempting to play like you’re John Wick, going off by yourself to solo the objective, achieves nothing except a few points for the sniper that inevitably picks you off from 200 meters away. With your team, however, that same sniper might still kill you, but now your teammates will spot him and make him face the consequences of his actions. By the time you get back to where you were shot, the sniper will be long gone.
Wars are not won with a few soldiers, so RS2 really hammers in the idea that there is strength in numbers and victory in cooperation. This game absolutely shines when teams coordinate, communicate, and just stick with each other. For example, each team in the game has a Commander. The Commander is the most important role in-game as they are able to use abilities like artillery, napalm, bombing runs, recon, and an instant respawn of dead teammates. These abilities can completely change the course of a match, but they can’t be used without coordinates marked by Squad Leaders, making them just as important as the Commander. On top of being able to set marks down, SL’s are also able to build or act as a mobile spawn point for their squad mates so they are able to get to the objective faster and apply constant pressure on the enemy.
Even if you’re not a Squad Leader or a Commander, you can still help your team out tremendously. Your team can’t reach the objective due to a dug-in enemy? Pick up a machine gun, find a position, and start laying down suppressing fire. Even if you hit no one, you’re forcing the enemy to keep their heads down long enough for your team to advance. Is a sniper guarding a flank? Throw down some smoke grenades to obscure their view. Even by playing the objective, you relay to your team that there’s an opening they should take advantage of. There is nothing more fun than storming the objective through a hail of bullets and a mess of smoke screens with the strength of a platoon right there with you. Even if you don’t end up capturing it, at least you softened the defenses up enough for the next wave to succeed.
RS2 is not a game for everyone. It is an adrenaline-fueled and punishing experience, but with tactical thinking, teamwork, and some situational awareness, you can rise above the brutality of battle and emerge victorious. If you’re looking to get your heartrate up and to be a team player, then I highly recommend you play this game. You might not have fun for the first few hours, but you’ll get the hang of it eventually.
OHS Senior, first and only year on staff
