Unknowingly, my total playtime in Delta Force has nearly reached 500 hours. And the feeling of "hitting a bottleneck" is becoming increasingly strong.
My "happy home," Zero Dam, has a clear structure and familiar routes, allowing for knife-running in the second half or aggressive pushes in the Administration Building. But after playing the same old tricks for too long, the threshold for excitement inevitably rises;
With the same Combat Readiness in Longbow Valley, you can casually stroll and loot, eating your fill from spawn to extraction without issue. But as someone who prefers the "Aggressive Zone," I always want to stir up trouble out of nowhere—Longbow Valley is too large, so it's not suitable;
So, Bakhshi, "Spaceport," or "Prison"? Let's just say, playing occasionally to experience intense indoor CQB battles is fine. But staying a bit longer, with my skill level, I'd probably end up featuring in the next episode of "Saving Bankrupt Soldiers"...
So, I started daydreaming—could Delta Force one day release a new map that balances aggressive pushes and knife-running, offers sufficient tactical depth, and has a low learning curve, completely breaking the "impossible triangle" of the "Havoc Warfare" mode?
But recently, I found that my daydream actually came true. And this "dream fulfiller" is the new "Nuclear Power Plant" themed map "AZ3," coming in the S10 "Fission" season.
As everyone knows, maps in Delta Force's "Havoc Warfare" are updated almost on a "yearly" basis to fully account for repeated player exploration and various encounter scenarios. So after the teaser was released during last year's anniversary, players' expectations for the "Nuclear Power Plant" map were instantly maxed out and continued to grow. Like me, all deep players of "Havoc Warfare" have been waiting for the day "AZ3" would be officially implemented.
Fortunately, "AZ3" did not disappoint players' expectations. Whether it's the special animation of arriving at the core area of the nuclear power plant in a "highly protected vehicle" at the start, or the strong atmosphere created by various nuclear facilities after disembarking, you can immediately feel that in terms of graphics and visual quality, "AZ3" is fully comparable to "Tidal Prison."
Moreover, "AZ3" is not just about superficial visual effects. As mentioned earlier, in terms of gameplay, it breaks the long-standing "impossible triangle," taking the "Havoc Warfare" mode experience post-"Tidal Prison" a significant step forward.
The reason for saying this is that "AZ3" has a "Normal" difficulty.
There's a "Normal" difficulty, and the "Confidential" difficulty allows entry with less than 120k Combat Readiness, sharing the same positioning as "Zero Dam" and "Longbow Valley"... Players familiar with "Havoc Warfare" should know the value of the "AZ3" setting—after launch, everyone can master this map without barriers, and even entering with full gear later won't easily result in going down empty-handed.
Furthermore, as a map focused on "indoor environments," even after mastering it, the gameplay experience of "AZ3" remains solid.
Think about it, in every "Confidential Dam" match, at least three teams appear near the Administration Building. Besides fighting for loot, a major reason is that the indoor CQB experience in the Administration Building itself is thrilling and addictive. Now, "AZ3," with its numerous building areas and sufficient tactical depth, offers this gameplay with "increased volume but no increase in Combat Readiness cost." For most players who aren't yet dominating mid-to-high-end matches but enjoy aggressive gunfights, this is undoubtedly great news.
Conversely, for players who enjoy "knife-running," the complex architectural structure of "AZ3" serves as natural cover. Once they memorize where every door and corridor leads, they can quickly become "AZ3 locals," evading pursuit through various vertical routes and successfully extracting with loot.
Moreover, "AZ3" introduces two unique looting mechanics—as a "Nuclear Power Plant" themed map, looting special containers such as radioactive waste bins and hazmat suits will accumulate "Radiation Value."
Initially, under the influence of "Radiation Excitement," it seems like a positive buff, accelerating looting speed. However, if it continues to accumulate, from "Radiation Hallucinations" that block vision to various injury effects that directly impact mobility, the negative impacts of radiation will grow larger, likely dragging you into a very passive state.
However, "the bigger the storm, the more valuable the fish." If you can use various devices on the map to clean up radiation in time, you can avoid this situation. After mastering the map, "knife-running rats" can plan routes to connect high-radiation resource containers with cleaning devices, allowing them to maximize benefits while avoiding risks, successfully extracting all the way.
Furthermore, beyond these fixed routes, another mechanic in "AZ3"—the "Key"—adds a bit of randomness to spice up the knife-running journey. In various rooms across "AZ3," you might find a purple-quality special item called a "Key." By using the "Key" and observing the radar on it, you will eventually be led to a previously inaccessible room.
At this point, you can not only loot the items in the room but also find a gold-quality upgraded "Key." Following this logic, this decryption mechanism will eventually lead you to a room that can only be opened with a red-quality "Key." Since these "Key Rooms" often contain high-tier containers like small safes and computer cases, the overall yield from this journey is quite considerable.
In addition to catering to both "aggressive pushes" and "knife-running," for players who love large-scale scenes and immersion, "AZ3" has an irreplaceable advantage: it features the largest and most spectacular benchmark operation in the history of Delta Force.
After accepting the mission, under the guidance of the Doctor, players will navigate through the most mysterious and dangerous parts of the nuclear facility, ultimately performing an emergency shutdown of the leaking nuclear reactor. A massive explosion will permanently alter the terrain of the "Sarcophagus" area in the current match, and the narrative direction of the entire "AZ3" map will change at that moment.
Alternatively, after obtaining this intelligence, you can try to "break the fourth wall" in subsequent matches by choosing to forgo the looting rewards in key nuclear facility containers at the start of the game and actively shutting them down instead.
Due to the large size of "AZ3" and the time limit on this hidden storyline, this hidden plot can only be successfully triggered if players across the entire map simultaneously make this choice. At that time, "AZ3" will achieve its "Nuclear-Free World" good ending.
Although this process inevitably involves countless failures, once like-minded players gather together to strive for this common goal, the sense of achievement and joy upon success will be unmatched by any previous game.
At this point, some players might ask: Streamer, what if I prefer playing "All-Out Warfare"?—Rest assured. In "All-Out Warfare," the S10 "Fission" season also brings a heavyweight new map, "Claudius Colosseum."
As the attack and defense progress, from the macro view of the cityscape blending ancient and modern elements to the detailed weathering of stone buildings, the visual prowess of "Claudius Colosseum" will unfold before players like a painting.
Meanwhile, in terms of gameplay, "Claudius Colosseum" can be called the culmination of experience accumulated over ten seasons of "All-Out Warfare." It not only creates numerous engagement points through cover placement, making the entire match tense and exciting, but also offers different tactical approaches for each position, including street fighting, elevation differences, and close-quarters indoor combat, constantly refreshing players' offensive and defensive experiences within the same match.
However, if these were the only features, "Claudius Colosseum" still couldn't be called "weighty." The real highlight of this map lies in its newly introduced "Subordinate Points" mechanic. Although "Subordinate Points" themselves do not affect the progress of point capture, capturing them provides your team with advantageous respawn locations, offering a huge advantage for subsequent battles.
At the final point, the "Subordinate Points" will directly affect the level evolution gameplay of the entire match. After the attacking side captures the two "Subordinate Points" on either side of the position, "Claudius Colosseum" will trigger its exclusive level evolution—Rocket Crash. At this moment, the attackers and defenders will swap roles. The original attackers, who needed to capture points, must now defend the rocket wreckage for two and a half minutes, while the original defenders must charge in relentlessly.
Most importantly, this attack-defense switch is independent of the fixed rules of "All-Out Warfare." Even if conditions are met, there will be no overtime after the roles swap. If they fail to capture within the time limit, they will lose the entire match, and all previous efforts will go up in smoke. It's easy to imagine that under the influence of this huge benefit/threat, the struggle for the two "Subordinate Points" between attackers and defenders will be unprecedentedly fierce.
Similar to "AZ3," this complex and varied experience, where the outcome of each game differs, will surely captivate countless "All-Out Warfare" players.
Logically, the major updates for the two main modes, "Havoc Warfare" and "All-Out Warfare," would be enough to sustain the entire S10 season. But actually, at this point, only half of the S10 season's update highlights have been revealed.
Regarding operators, the new operator "Liquid Nitrogen" features two "Freezing" throwables with huge splash ranges: Cold Canisters and Condensation Grenades, as well as "Tracking Shockwaves" that can trace enemies. These will rewrite the original attack-defense dynamics of Delta Force with their powerful area control capabilities.
On the weapon front, the introduction of the new "HVK" series kits allows players to develop more unexpected new playstyles based on the existing weapon system.
Fewer words, harder hit
In addition, the S10 "Fission" season will bring a collaboration event between Delta Force and Rainbow Six Siege, offering both benefits and prestige. Three heroes from Rainbow Six Siege—Shield, Doc, and Vigil—will become legendary skins, and the distinctive "Ice" series weapon skins will also arrive in Delta Force.
Most importantly, this collaboration event is also completely free-to-play friendly, offering operator skins (choose 2 out of 3) and weapon skins (choose 1 out of 2) for free. With such a good deal, who can resist logging in to grab some freebies from Tencent?
From new maps to new operators, new weapons, and collaboration events, in the past, each of these updates alone would make people want to log in and experience them immediately. In terms of quality, each piece of content here is enough to keep people playing slowly throughout an entire season.
But now, Delta Force has actually bundled them all into the same season... Honestly, this goes far beyond just being "plentiful." If you want to fully digest all of them, you'll probably need to "clock in every day" this summer.