Firefighting Simulator - The Squad Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of Firefighting Simulator - The Squad (Xbox One)

Wednesday, December 21, 2022.
by Adam Dileva

Firefighting Simulator - The Squad Box art

Having originally released on PC back in 2020, Firefighting Simulator – The Squad is now here for you and your group of friends to fight fires together as one cohesive unit. Like many young kids, at one point I wanted to be a firefighter. Something about running into a burning building saving someone, or getting that cat stuck up in the tree, felt like being a true life hero. Well now the time has come and you can get an idea of what it may be like to fight fires alongside a squad of friends with Firefighting Simulator – The Squad.

Before you start your new career of fighting fires, you’ll need to know what to do, which is where the opening tutorial comes in. This starts with the basics then has optional tutorials you can take, of which I would suggest going through for more than just the achievement of course. The basics start with showing you how to move and spray water on the fire, but you’ll also learn how to use all the doors at a firefighter’s disposal, such as axes, pry bars, circular saw and more.

Certain tools will be needed to open blocked doors and windows, even allowing you to smash through certain walls for another entry point. The tutorials do a decent job of showing you how to extinguish a fire, as fire can spread if you don’t battle against it properly. Sometimes you need to think about how to prevent a fire from spreading since you can’t instantly extinguish it. You’ll also be taught how to crouch so you can deal with the heavy smoke before you ventilate rooms by opening doors and windows.

I initially made a joke about the game having backdrafts, one of the best early 90’s movies, and to my surprise they are actually a hazard you need to be aware of in the game as well, though don't seem to happen often. This is a simulator though, so you’ll need to establish your hoses, command your squad and even use ladder trucks to fight the fires from above or to save people trapped inside a building.

I hope you weren’t expecting some story or narrative about being a rookie, working their way up the ranks to eventually be a captain or something, because there’s absolutely no story mode or anything of the sort here. There is a progression system where you get XP for completing missions, but you simply go from one mission to the next. Your goal is to beat all the missions and score the best you can. That’s about it.

Being a simulator, you can expect there’s some realism to the game, and this starts with officially licensed gear from Cairns, MSA G1 SCBA, Leatherhead Tools and HAIX. Now I’m no firefighter, nor know anything about the gear they use in real life, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it’s probably authentic to the gear worn by actual firefighters. There’s also officially licensed firetrucks as well from Rosenbauer America, such as the TP3 Pumper and T-Rex Articulating Platform. While I doubt many won’t know this gear or brand unless you’re in this career path, I’m sure this will make those that are, happy to see its authenticity.

As mentioned above, you’ll simply be doing one mission after another. You can see the map that spans roughly 15km of roads and there’s about 30 or so missions to complete. You only begin with a few missions unlocked, but as you complete them and earn XP, missions will unlock based on your levels and completion, so it will take a bit of grinding to unlock and complete them all. You can replay missions whenever you wish if there’s some that really stand out, and there’s also randomized missions as well to keep things a bit fresh.

So let’s talk about actually fighting the fires. Well, before you do so you’ll need to drive there from the fire station where the truck is parked. I was expecting to have some sort of minigame of getting your gear equipped or at least sliding down the iconic pole, but nope, you simply start in your truck and are off to the call. Your map will show you the path to get to the fire, adjusting if you miss or make a wrong turn. You can choose to have your headlights and sirens on. Just like real life, most cars will get out of your way when they hear the siren and see you coming, but there’s always one or two that are either oblivious or don’t care, requiring you to swerve a bit to avoid a collision. As for the actual driving mechanics, it’s as basic as it gets. Collide into cars or objects and you get a traffic incident, causing you to be slow and then most likely not getting your quick response bonus.

So you’ve followed the GPS and made it to the scene, now what? Well, you’re a firefighter, you trained for this. Usually one member will do a 360 of the scene to find out what’s happened or notice if any survivors inside. Next will be establishing your lines and hoses, as that’s how you’ll be fighting the fires. First you go to the truck and find the supply hose indicated by yellow and attach that to the fire hydrant nearby. This will supply and route the water through the firetruck once you connect the other end to it.

Go back to your truck and find the red attack hose, attach to the proper connector on the truck, get a nozzle from another compartment and attach that. Now you’re ready to start blasting the fire with some pressurized water, though I'm not sure why nozzles don't come pre-attached, but maybe that's how it is in real life. You can setup these lines yourself or get the AI to do so with the command wheel, but more on that shortly. The truck will also have different compartments with the other tools you’ll need like your circular saws to cut through locks, fire extinguishers for grease fires, axes and more based on your needs.

Now that you’ve got your attack line, you’re ready to do what you do best; putting out those fires. Holding ‘Right Trigger’ will have you spray water wherever you’re aiming. No need to worry about destroying objects, blasting your teammates, or even how the line will get around corners. The attack line magically grows whenever you walk with it, which is quite hilarious at the end of a job, seeing hundreds of feet of hose all around the ground like a den of snakes.

When you start blasting the fire with your hose you’ll start to see small fire icons. These start large and eventually shrink before disappearing, stating that the fire has been put out. You have to be aware of how fire behaves though. Just because you put out the fire on one wall, the other or roof that’s still burning can cause it to reignite, so you need to be methodical about how you’re putting out the fires so that you’re not there not making any progress.

If you decide to play solo, that’s perfectly viable, as the team of four will be filled with AI team members at all times. You do have a command wheel where you can instruct each of the team to do something different if you want, but I found this to work spotty at best. I generally just instructed them to always fight the fire, or go rescue an unconscious person once I’m able to find where they are passed out on the floor.

While you’ll primarily be fighting standard fires, there’s a few other strategies you’ll need to utilize if you’re dealing with a grease, chemical or even an electrical fire. If you try to use your attack hose to put out a grease fire it’ll make things worse, causing an explosion and reigniting everything around once again. This requires you to grab a fire extinguisher instead to put out these spots before going back to the water line. Like real life, fire extinguishers have a finite supply within the canister, so you’ll need to be efficient as possible to avoid having to go back to the truck to grab a replacement. Electrical fires are a little trickier, as if you spray water on these components, they’ll simply reignite from the sparks. To stop this you’ll need to find the electrical shut-off box for the building, sometimes outside, sometimes in a random room. Turn off the power and then you’ll be able to finally make progress on the fires without reignition.

Lastly, you’ll need to keep an eye out for survivors. These are usually people unconscious in specific rooms, able to be carried all the out outside to the ambulance waiting on the road. You can do this yourself or instruct your AI partners to do so, and there’s a few times where I had people awake and scared, simply telling them to follow me out of the burning building to rescue.

While there’s no crossplay between Xbox and other consoles and PC, though Xbox One and Series X|S players can join a squad and play together. Every mission calls for four players, so if you can’t find people or friends to play with, the spots will fill with AI. The most entertainment obviously came from when I was playing alongside 3 other firefighters, each focusing on a different aspect to battle the blaze. Joining other players’ games I did have the odd game drop out, though I’m not sure if I simply got kicked or not, it doesn’t tell you. Hosting my own games I had a few people join here and there, but the community seems to be quite small, so if you plan on playing multiplayer, make sure you somehow convince a friend to purchase the game as well.

Let’s be honest, a good majority of simulator titles usually are quite rough around the edges. Where they lack in polish they make up in having unique gameplay, and Firefighting Simulator - The Squad is no different. Quite ‘janky’, I had a plethora of issues yet still found myself wanting to battle just one more fire before calling it quits for the night. There were a lot of bugs and such throughout though. The pop-in for objects while driving the firetruck to the destination is absolutely terrible at times, especially when hitting top speed. Buildings, trees and background items will appear out of nowhere, and even cars that were previously in your way completely disappear randomly. I once even spawned into a mission with the firetruck flipped on its side and facing the wrong way, dinging me for a traffic accident and of course not making the quick response time bonus. Animations are also quite spotty, like when you go to pick up a survivor, holding the button will eventually just have them appear over your shoulder or placing them on the stretcher instantly without any movements in-between.

Visuals are basically what you’d expect from a small studio doing a sim title. There’s nothing outstanding or all that impressive, though I will say the fire can look quite good when you’re in the middle of a building surrounded by flames and smoke. Audio is what you’d expect as well, with the siren of the firetruck (though no echo when going through a tunnel), radio communications and some information told by dispatch on the way to a fire. The roar and crackles of the fire sound quite good and the background soundtrack is subtle enough without becoming annoying.

While I’d categorize Firefighting Simulator - The Squad more of a simcade than a pure simulator, it does have some enjoyment to it regardless of its many shortcomings. Even though it has a lot of ‘jank’, I found myself trying to do just one more mission until the late hours of the night. Aside from playing alongside from friends though, there’s not much longevity here, as the gameplay loop doesn’t change from start to finish. On a half-off sale I could recommend Firefighting Simulator - The Squad for a few hours of entertainment, but at full price (currently $38.99 CAD), it’s a bit too pricey for what it offers.

**Firefighting Simulator - The Squad was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 5.0 / 10
Gameplay: 5.0 / 10
Visuals: 4.0 / 10
Sound: 6.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Firefighting Simulator - The Squad (Xbox One)

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