As one of the Kickstarter backers of the game I can give you all a few of my thoughts on Days of War.
Firstly it's important to realise Early Access means it is far from the finished article. Don't expect perfection. This week alone there have been 4 patches as different optimisations are tried. Importantly the devs have been listening to feedback.
Driven Arts are a small team. What they have achieved on a small budget and in a few months (yes they fell behiind their original schedule) is remarkable. It doesn't feel like a small game. Using the Unreal Engine 4 system they have built a WWII shooter, amining to resurrect some of the classic FPS games of 10-15 years ago, in a modern computing environment. Most players say the closest influence is Days of Defeat, but there are facets of CoD UO, MoH:AA and ET. (I suspect Battalion 1944 when that eventually arrives will be far more CoD UO/2 and MOH).
At present you play as US or German troops, currently set in WWII 1944. Coming soon will be British and Russian troops, but that may need new maps / scenarios. It is infantry only with mix of sniper, rifle, shotgun, light and heavy machine guns,and rockets. Importantly, all weapons are available to all players so none of this ranking up stuff for unlocks. You choose your soldier type role (you can swap mid game), which determines the primary weapon, and what secondaries you might have for 'nade, pistol, mellee (knife, shovel etc). Some of the weapon animations remain a little bit clunky. Weapons genuinely have different characteristics and a recoil effect has serious implications especially for the heavy guns where you'll shoon be pointing skywards.
At Early Access we have 4 maps available (more are promised). Thunder, Carentan, Kayersberg and Omaha. The first three are urban settings and play a sort of domination type game. Carentan you sort of know but is on a much bigger scale now than the CoD maps you might remember. They are experimenting with day, dusk type settings, and different weather conditions. Omaha is more objective based (capture / detonate fixed locations starting with fences on the beach edge before getting over the cliff to detonate gun emplacements or whatever). It's cleverly done with an impressive set piece opening of the landing craft coming in after which allied try to storm the beach and get over the top of the cliff with the axis controlling the clifftop trenches and bunker behind. Maps are built for up to 32 players but they've done some stress tests, with up to 100 players, which are just carnage, and today suggest they will make this a new limit (eat your heart out Battlefield).
A feature of most maps is relatively tight alleys, or pathways that create a lot of pinch points. It makes it a challenge to get across the maps in enough force to take the hostile zones of the opposite team. Teamwork (which we are crap at) would be key. Many may find it frustrating that you always spawn back in your base / starting point, so have to recover the same ground. But that seems to work in reducing a team's ability to move forward with constant instant reinforcement.
There is still work to be done on graphics and sound, the latter not being that directional or having adequate tone especially for some guns. They are working to optimise things like "fog of war" so it adds properly to the environment, affecting all classes equally (at present snipers seem to be able to see through it but those with iron sights don't). Having said that I find it so much easier to locate enemy troops compared to say BF1.
The game is multiplayer only. It is fast paced. Run and gunners will probably have more fun than those who camp, especially on the urban style maps. The campers inevitably get spotted and bypassed, but there isn't a massive glow from sniper sights (unlike BF games) so they are less easy to spot. You play in a standard mode that has crosshairs, minimap, and regen health, but damage from bullets is quite high so a hardcore mode wouldn't have much effect on your life expectancy.
The game will push your hardware if you let it. Currently I need around 12GB hard drive (will need more with more maps). CPU load can be around 25% on my i7 5820K, with the 980Ti all bling turned on getting about 60-70FPS on the 1440p monitor (DX12). Like most games, you can detune if your system struggles, but an i5 2500K with GTX560 or AMD 7850 is the recommended minimum for Windows 7 DX11 or later. Some have complained of buggy FPS rates, but I think that has improved a lot as of the last couple of patches as the devs bug hunt.
Personally, so far I like what I see. It does need a lot more content, and more is promised. If you enjoyed the early FPS Arcade type games of CoD:UO, MOH, Days of Defeat, and so on it's probably worth a punt.
one of my fav online fps memories was COD and CODUO
