How to cause trouble.

Getting started

Launch the game from your Steam library. The launcher is where you choose how to play:

• Play online: host a Steam lobby (friends-only or public), browse public lobbies, join with a code or accept a friend's invite.
• LAN: host or join a game on your local network.
• Practice: play offline against a full lobby of bots.

Empty slots are always filled with bots, so a match starts as soon as you're ready, whether you have 1 player or 20.

Controls

Play with keyboard and mouse or a controller, and switch between them at any time. You can see the controls in game at any time from Esc → How to play.

Keyboard & mouse

Controller

Xbox, PlayStation (DualShock 4 and DualSense), Switch Pro, Steam Controller, Steam Deck and hundreds of other controllers work over USB or Bluetooth through Steam Input, and you can rebind everything in Steam's controller settings. In menus, the D-pad or left stick moves, A (✕) selects and B (○) goes back. Text boxes open Steam's on-screen keyboard.

How a match works

There are no turns. Everyone moves, aims and fires at the same time. You drop into the battlefield by parachute (press S to cut it and fall faster), spawning with a pistol.

• Crates float down by parachute throughout the match. Walk into one to pick up the weapon or ammo inside. Shoot a crate and it explodes.
• Boost: hold W or Space in the air to boost. The boost bar under your health refills over time.
• Headshots deal extra damage.
• Water is deadly. Fall in and you're out.
• Scrap is match money, earned from kills, assists and objectives. Spend it in the respawn shop (V) during the first 8 seconds after you respawn to kit out your next life.
• Build points (BP) are earned from kills and objectives and pay for building.

Weapons

Pick a weapon with the number keys, the mouse wheel or Q/E, or click it in the loadout bar. Thrown weapons charge while you hold the fire button: the longer you hold, the further they fly.

Destruction & collapse

Every part of the ground can be destroyed. Explosions dig craters, drills bore tunnels and fire burns through the grass.

Land that loses its connection to the ground breaks off, falls and fuses back into the terrain where it lands. Blow out the root of a cliff and the whole overhang drops. Anyone underneath gets flattened, and the kill goes to whoever caused the collapse. Cave ceilings stand on rock pillars and bunkers stand on their walls, so take out the supports and everything above comes down.

Building

Press B to enter build mode. Pick a piece with the number keys, change material with F, flip it with R, and click to place. Built pieces become real terrain: you can stand on them, tunnel into them and blow them up. Walls soak up blast damage and stop bullets.

Materials are wood, stone and metal, each tougher than the last. Pieces cost build points:

Vehicles

Vehicles appear in Frontline War. Walk up to one and press F to get in, and F again to bail out. The bar at the bottom of the screen shows the vehicle's armour.

• Jeep: Fast and light, with a mounted machine gun. Hold fire to shoot and drive straight through people to ram them. W hops over bumps.
• Tank: Slow, heavily armoured and shrugs off blasts. Its cannon shells punch craters and wreck HQs.
• Helicopter: Flies anywhere. W and S change altitude, and it fires rocket salvos at the crosshair.

Game modes

• Team Deathmatch: Four teams, one kill limit. First team to reach it wins.
• Capture the Flag: Steal the enemy flag. Your own flag has to be home to score.
• King of the Hill: Hold the glowing zone. It moves every minute, and a contested zone scores for nobody.
• Last Man Standing: No respawns. After two minutes the water starts rising.
• Frontline War: Two armies, vehicles and a huge battlefield. Level the enemy HQ.

In Frontline War each army defends an HQ. Damaging the enemy HQ lowers their score shown at the top of the screen. Bring it to 0% and it goes up in a chain of explosions and your team wins.

Multiplayer

• Up to 20 players in up to four teams. Bots fill every empty slot.
• Hosting: one player hosts the match and their PC runs the game server, so a quad-core CPU is recommended for hosts of full lobbies.
• Host migration: if the host leaves, another player takes over and the match continues.
• Voice chat: hold C to talk to nearby teammates. Switch to open mic or turn it off in the game menu.
• Chat: press Enter to type.
• Leaderboard: kills in online Steam matches count toward the kill leaderboard. Practice and LAN games don't.

Cosmetics & credits

Matches earn credits. Spend them in the launcher's wardrobe on more than 40 hats, outfits, face gear and back items for your stickman. Cosmetics never change stats. Credits and unlocks from online Steam matches are saved to your Steam account; offline progress is kept separately on your PC.

Settings

Open the game menu with Esc:

• Graphics: High (bloom and glow) or Low (faster on older PCs).
• Mess level: gore at Maximum, Mild or Off.
• Team voice: push to talk, open mic or off.
• Sound: on or off (or press M).

Accessibility

Open the game menu (Esc or Menu on a controller) and expand Accessibility. Every option applies immediately and is remembered.

• Text size: 100% to 200% for the HUD, in-game menus and name tags.
• Captions: on-screen captions for important sounds (air strikes, HQ alarms, mines, crates, explosions and more), with an arrow showing which side they came from, plus who is talking on voice chat. Caption size and background opacity are adjustable separately.
• Team colours: a colour-blind safe palette, a high-contrast palette, or pick each team's colour yourself.
• Team symbols: adds ▲ ■ ● ◆ to names, the scoreboard, the kill feed and the minimap, so teams never rely on colour alone.
• HUD contrast: solid black panels with white text and outlined name tags.
• Display contrast: four levels of battlefield contrast.
• Screen shake: 100%, 50%, 25% or off.
• Flashes: full, reduced or off, for the screen flashes from big explosions and damage.
• Camera speed and camera lean: how quickly the camera follows you, and how far it leans toward your aim (or not at all).
• Gore: Maximum, Mild or Off, under Mess level.

The game has no spoken dialogue. Menus and gameplay work fully on a controller, and controls can be rebound in Steam's controller settings.

Troubleshooting

• Low frame rate: set Graphics to Low and make sure the game is running on your dedicated GPU (Windows Settings → Display → Graphics).
• Lag in online games: matches are player-hosted, so connection quality depends on the host. Try a lobby hosted closer to you, or host yourself.
• Voice chat not working: check Windows has allowed microphone access, and that Team voice isn't set to Off.
• Found a bug? Use the Feedback button in the launcher. It sends your report and recent log lines straight to the developer.

System requirements