Insurgency: Sandstorm

 PC
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 239 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 182 out of 239
  2. Mixed: 26 out of 239
  3. Negative: 31 out of 239

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  1. Izoeros
    Jul 10, 2022
    7
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  2. arostislavna
    Aug 31, 2022
    7
    There is a stark difference between the base game and the ISMC mod.

    Do not play without ISMC. Period.

    7/10 for base game, 10/10 for ISMC mod.
  3. Wineneeder
    Sep 9, 2022
    5
    I really want to like it, but it is incredibly campy. There's no teamplay and most of the time there's a painful amount of mic spam, worse when it's after map voting and you can't see who it is or mute them. Or it's somebody shouting the n-word now that a bunch of COD players have given up the latest one of those.

    It has improved much, but the devs have made some questionable decisions.    I really want to like it, but it is incredibly campy. There's no teamplay and most of the time there's a painful amount of mic spam, worse when it's after map voting and you can't see who it is or mute them. Or it's somebody shouting the n-word now that a bunch of COD players have given up the latest one of those.

    It has improved much, but the devs have made some questionable decisions. Frontline has major problems, compared to similar modes in the last game/removed from this one.

    Sooo yes, I got to level 1000, but I wouldn't have even bothered if every other shooter series hadn't taken a major downturn. It's still a lot of playtime, sometimes it's fun and it works.

    Maybe in two or more years, they'll fix one or two specific angles in Outskirts Frontline and maybe it 5 percent less of a dry ass fisting for insurgents. I mean it worked for Crossing, now it's only around ~80 percent of a dry one if there's any number of absurdly high level players on the enemy team. They can't even headglitch spawn camp you now, just regular spawn camping!

    Basically everything is great, except the game types, the maps, the playerbase, the hitreg, and the balance... you get the picture. But everything else is chef's kiss, I do mean it. It's a good looking game, good sounding game. Anyway.    … Expand
  4. clem666
    Oct 31, 2020
    6
    (I played 'Insurgency: Sandstorm' for 29 hours until today and I came here after about 350 hours in Insurgency the 1st (2014), which was and still is awesome.)

    This is a solid game: not for everyone, but beautiful, tactical, rough, challenging, complete and varied. You have access to the main content of a respectful FPS: solo, coop and competitive modes, two teams, a bunch of different    (I played 'Insurgency: Sandstorm' for 29 hours until today and I came here after about 350 hours in Insurgency the 1st (2014), which was and still is awesome.)

    This is a solid game: not for everyone, but beautiful, tactical, rough, challenging, complete and varied. You have access to the main content of a respectful FPS: solo, coop and competitive modes, two teams, a bunch of different classes, a dozen maps. There are some major improvements compared to Insurgency (2014): free updates and events, some reinvented maps, a plethora of customizable items and characters (to buy with game money though), vehicules you can drive, truly immersive door kicking system, as well as the intimidation and the mask and gas systems. You have the opportunity to ask for air support to help you and your team progress.

    But these tactical nukes/smoke systems sometimes completely ruin the round. At some point they are inevitable and impossible to counter. You just have to pray you're not at the bad place at the wrong moment. In this perspective I could also write about AI which swings between sixth sense (bots can see through smoke and some walls) and incredible foolishness. Developpers added something looking like a kill cam but which proves to be particularly useless, especially in competitive mode. As I speak about competitive mode, be prepared to wait and do nothing for the half of the round because when you're dead, you're dead. One shot can make you out of the action for 5 complete minutes (in a FPS that is a tragedy) and that is not when you and your teammates get spawnkilled... Coop modes are full of campers who don't play the objectives and do their best to get more kills easily. The conclusion is that with a little practice, coop modes are way funnier to play (less death, more kills, more melee action and less time being out of the game). Sound effects were one of the greatest points of Insurgency (2014) but it feels like they have put less effort in it because some weapons sound like plastic and fake metal. It is also true for some animations and special effects: I mean the molotov flames are quite beautiful but it is clearly not suppposed to work that way. Bullets also seems to do way less damage (and it's surely linked to the fact that devs deleted armour-piercing bullets). It becomes really frustrating when you get in a gunfight and the opponent doesn't die after 3 of 4 bullets in the thorax. In this way you have to activate automatic and bursts gunshots because manual are not fast enough. Another defect is that the devs couldn't help themselves from adding some dumb DLC's with skins and gear sets. But all of this will not wipe out the main flaw of 'Insurgency: Sandstorm' which is according to me the loss of the Workshop in Steam, making impossible to easily add mods and packages. Definitively not worth its price unless you are here to play in immersive and beautiful environments.

    The most powerful experience I had with this game (and I recommend it to each and everyone) is to play while listening to Run The Jewels (their 3rd album to be precise). This album is perfect for the pace of 'Insurgency: Sandstorm', it is brutal, it is sharp and it is precise: a must-test!    … Expand
  5. kekecdrekec
    Sep 6, 2019
    7
    The game is good but if your asking why a 7 and not an 8?
    Il start off with the good parts:
    -The gameplay is superb its just like Insurgency when it came out in 2014 and it had these awesome guns and awesome reloading animations that are so good that you think that you are reloading it. shooting a gun in this game is superb it feels realy good. -customization of your character is very    The game is good but if your asking why a 7 and not an 8?
    Il start off with the good parts:
    -The gameplay is superb its just like Insurgency when it came out in 2014 and it had these awesome guns and awesome reloading animations that are so good that you think that you are reloading it. shooting a gun in this game is superb it feels realy good.
    -customization of your character is very good there are so many options of customizing your character which means: Your head (having different collors of eyes and different hats and helmets), torso (Many many t-shirts or army uniforms and many other) your legs and feet! plus even your own voice!.
    - The graphics are improved and looks very nice and I realy like the ragdolls here they are soo good and when they die they either have a realy well made ragdoll or they have a dying animations YES a dying animation! So you are even more sad for the guy you just shot and you can even execute him when he's laying on the ground crying or screaming of pain!
    - There are many many many weapons in the game with allot of customization of your weapons ( But you have to choose what to get because you have points to use for your customizations) and they are always adding more guns all the time!
    - I like that they added the new Commander and Observer roles that makes the game more interesting and will give you PTSD since you are getting bombarded and you have to run inside an objective full of enemies and you hope not to get hit by artillery or get shot by the enemy!
    There are many abilities for the commander to use for both teams
    Insurgents: Artillery, Smoke artillery, Drone bombardment, Bomb drone (only one drone but it goes trough windows and explodes), Gas!, and katjusha bombardments!
    Security: artillery, smoke artillery, Helicopter with explosive missiles, helicopter with minigun, and the autocannon strike.

    The negatives:
    -Optimization the game is so badly optimized that even the best pc can't run this on 60+ fps. It ruins your immersion allot when you just get a random fps drop when you shoot at an enemy this one of the biggest issues the game is still having, plus there aren't many maps
    - The maps are mediocre (The only 2 good maps are Ministry and Outpost) they are so open and they are realy wierd to play trough I mean legit if you are going to buy this game and you feel like the maps are a bit wierd it is because they are not that good.
    -The movement this game decided to make the speed of the game a bit too quick but this is going to be fixed in a few months as they sayd but right know everyone is sprinting and sprinting and just straight up rushing so if you don't like the cod like speed of running then wait when there's an update that sayd HARDCORE mode for EVERY gamemode.
    -The game lacks game modes there are so few gamemodes than in the original insurgency.
    Co-op has 1 yes 1 GAMEMODE and that is rush to destroy a cache or capture a point and you have a 50-50 chance of either capturing it and continue or having to hold out enemies that are trying to take it back. Its fun for 15 hours then it gets boring. PVP has got 3 modes: skirmish. push and firefight.
    -Competitive yes the game has competitive and guess what! It's dead

    The mediocre:
    -The arcade modes are fun but they do go away after a while and you "can" play them on community servers but the community servers are practicaly dead which means if you want to paly Team deathmatch just to enjoy it you can't because you can't find a server. While the other game mode frenzy right know is still in the game for know.

    The end:
    The game is totaly fine but even after a year the game is missing many things that the original Insurgency had. Its totaly a 7 and meaby in a few months (or years) the game will finaly be an 8 or even a 9.
    I hope my review wasn't as bad as i think it is (english wise) Have a nice day    … Expand
  6. S3XU4LH34L1NG
    Sep 7, 2023
    7
    A way more strategical take on the COD / BF / CS formula. The time to kill is extremely low making any weapon viable and making the game more about strategy and reflexes. Sadly there is no real progression system. Due to that many players quit and the player number are rather low.
  7. Dan9el99
    Dec 27, 2021
    7
    Dieser ultra realistische Hardcore Shooter spielt sich sehr wuchtig und anspruchsvoll. Das Gameplay ist zwar gut, aber der Umfang des Spiels etwas zu gering (7/10).
  8. TechnoSC
    Apr 16, 2023
    7
    I like it. I love realistic shooters, such as tarkov or Insurgency. But in this game, it's like "Arcade-ly" realistic. You die instantly when you get a head shot, which is good, but in the next moment you recovered from a grenade that just exploded besides you? And you hold your gun in the perfect aim position after running 50m? Arcade or a "realistic" shooter? But that's of course not aI like it. I love realistic shooters, such as tarkov or Insurgency. But in this game, it's like "Arcade-ly" realistic. You die instantly when you get a head shot, which is good, but in the next moment you recovered from a grenade that just exploded besides you? And you hold your gun in the perfect aim position after running 50m? Arcade or a "realistic" shooter? But that's of course not a really bad thing. The game itself is fun and with the right team and mods (open mod support), the game can be really fun. Especially during role-play or intense fighting areas.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

75
#75 Best PC Game of 2018
38
#38 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
19
#19 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 30
  3. Negative: 0 out of 30
  1. CD-Action
    Mar 25, 2019
    75
    If Battlefield is too arcadey for your taste and you’ve already heard everything about every player’s mum’s morals in CS:GO, Insurgency is an interesting alternative. It does have some minor technical problems, but once the developers sort them out, every tactical combat fan needs to check it out. [02/2019, p.51]
  2. Worth Playing
    Feb 21, 2019
    70
    It isn't as punishing as something like Arma, but it still offers fantastic audio and a brutal TTK that forces the player to slow down, think about their steps, and use all the tools the game puts at their disposal. One can't go into this game hoping for a sleek experience. The technical side of the game is just as gritty as its combat. In the heat of an intense battle, your processor will also put out some heat. Hopefully, New World Interactive can devote some time toward the technical side of things and put as much care into that as it did the audio and gameplay. If the developer can fix those issues, Insurgency: Sandstorm would be one of the better competitive shooters available on Steam.
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  3. Riot Pixels
    Feb 18, 2019
    67
    Insurgency: Sandstorm feels like a shoddy HD remaster of the original game rather than a full-fledged sequel, complete with annoying performance drops, popping up textures and bland map design.
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