At its core, Door Kickers is a top-down real-time strategy game that puts you in command of an elite SWAT team, from planning to execution. Your mission is to neutralize threats, save hostages, and complete objectives within a variety of scenarios. The game's strength lies in its tactical depth — both in pre-planning and in the actual real-time execution, offering an impressive array of tools and options to tackle each mission.
Before each mission, you can meticulously plan your approach by setting waypoints, determining the entry points, assigning roles, and analyzing enemy positions. The freedom to strategize and adapt your plan to the ever-changing situations is where Door Kickers truly shines. It’s just like drawing on a floor plan or blueprint and directing your squad what to do. Every movement, every turn, every opening of a turn, every grenade, every peek and eventual breach is up to you.
Once the mission begins, the tension mounts as you execute your plotted plan in real-time. You have the ability to pause the action at any moment to reevaluate your strategy and it adds an extra layer of real-time tactical depth, allowing you to make any changes and just not hope your initial plan pans out successfully, as well as allowing you to make calculated decisions rather than relying solely on reflexes. This blend of real-time action and tactical planning creates a unique and immersive gameplay experience.
As for your SWAT team, you are free to customize your own lineup and loadout for the characters. As you gain more stars by completing missions, you can unlock new classes to use like the assaulter, breacher, or stealth. And come up with a load out that matches these classes accordingly and synergies with other teammates and mission layouts. There is perma-death if these members die in a mission, and they will be replaced by a newly trained recruit, so you somewhat grow attached to these members sort of like an RPG game in iron man mode, and learn to actually care for their survival.
Although Door Kickers doesn't boast cutting-edge graphics, it presents a clean and functional aesthetic that serves its purpose well. The top-down cut-out view of the levels provides a clear and comprehensive view of the action, allowing players to assess the battlefield with ease. There is a cone vision gameplay mechanic to obscure enemies, so it's still realistic in that sense. The user interface is intuitive and doesn't clutter the screen, ensuring that the focus remains on the tactical aspects of the game.