Defilade’s Next Update Brings Tourniquets, Jamming Rifles, Better Trenches and Rats

Remember Defilade, the solo-developed RTS where soldiers actually use cover? The developer has just posted a teaser on the official Defilade Discord of what’s landed in the build since the reveal, plus what’s coming next. It’s a big list for a one-person team, and it ends with the most important feature in RTS history: rats in the trenches.

What’s been added

The theme is soldiers who look after themselves and react like people, not unit cards:

• Tourniquets. Wounded soldiers now put tourniquets on their own arms or legs, and the bandages stay on them afterwards.
• A prone system. A soldier surprised by an enemy up close falls onto his back and keeps firing. Prone soldiers also roll in and out of cover.
• Rifles jam. Higher-ranked soldiers get fewer jams, and in a firefight a soldier ducks into cover before clearing his weapon.
• Gear that ranks up. As units climb the ranks they get better kit and weapon upgrades: scopes, foregrips, suppressors and more.
• Helmets now get blown or shot off.
• Shrapnel. Explosions throw random shrapnel in every direction.
• Trees are cover, standing or broken. They also shake when explosions land nearby, dropping leaves and sending birds flying.
• Trenches rebuilt. They’ve been completely redone to look far more realistic, and trench warfare has been revamped to match.
• Rats in the trenches. As promised. With eight exclamation marks.

What’s next

• Terrain deformation (the dev says “hopefully”).
• Soldiers throwing grenades around trench corners before storming the next section.
• Veterans pulling lower-ranked soldiers down when they come under fire.
• Infantry climbing onto tanks and dropping grenades through the hatches when a tank pushes up without infantry support.
• POW trading.

The dev has also asked players on the Discord to suggest what they’d like to see next.

The wishlist count keeps climbing

Defilade’s Steam page went live on 21 September and pulled 12,000 wishlists in 17 hours, 70,000 in its first week, and more than 100,000 in under two weeks. The dev has also announced a new grasslands and rivers map. There’s still no release date: Steam says “Coming soon”, for Windows and Mac.

Our take

Self-applied tourniquets, jamming rifles and veterans dragging rookies into the dirt: this is the stuff that made us fall for Defilade in the first place. Every addition makes the soldiers feel more like people, which is exactly what makes losing one hurt. The tank-hatch grenade is going to make plenty of lazy armour pushes very short, and trench rats are the kind of detail you can’t un-see once you know it’s there.

Since the dev asked, here’s the GetRekt wishlist:

• Night fights, with flares, tracers and muzzle flash giving positions away.
• Weather and mud. With terrain deformation, shell craters that fill with water and bog down vehicles would be brutal.
• Smoke for rescues, with squads popping smoke before someone runs out to drag a wounded mate back.
• Spotters and radio operators for calling in artillery, so killing the radio guy actually matters.
• Named veterans with service records for the permadeath campaign, so you know exactly who you’re losing.

What would you add? Drop your ideas in the comments or the GetRekt Discord. If you haven’t wishlisted Defilade yet, now’s the time.

Sources

• Official Defilade Discord (developer update: feature teaser and “coming next” list)
• Defilade on Steam (release status, platforms)
• Defilade announcements on Steam (12K, 70K and 100K wishlist milestones, grasslands and rivers map)
• GetRekt First Look: Defilade