Enlisted
Enlisted is a World War II shooter in which you command a small unit of AI soldiers rather than playing one man alone. It was developed by Darkflow Software, published by Gaijin Entertainment, and released on 2 March 2021.
Every number below carries the date we checked it and is traced to a named source on the sources page. The things we could not establish are listed at the foot of the page rather than guessed at.
What a squad is
This is the thing most descriptions of Enlisted get wrong. A squad is not a group of human players. It is a unit of three to nine AI soldiers, modelled on real military divisions, that belongs to you. You directly control one soldier at a time and can switch to any other member of the squad; the rest follow your orders.
That design is why the game reads as a large battle while holding only twenty humans. Twenty players each fielding a squad puts something in the order of a hundred bodies on the map — but ninety of them are bots, and the distinction matters if you are deciding whether you want to play against people.
How big a match is
Ten human players per side in the standard modes. Custom battles are the exception: they can be configured for up to twenty-five a side with the AI squads switched off, which is the only place the human count goes higher.
It is easy to overestimate this, and much of the internet does. A battlefield carrying a hundred soldiers looks like a hundred-player game, and figures in circulation often count bodies rather than people. We have found no mode, at any point in the game's history, that puts more than twenty-five humans on a side.
What you can actually drive and fly
Infantry is the centre of the game: riflemen, assaulters, snipers, machine gunners, engineers, radio operators, anti-tank troops, mortarmen. Around that sit tanks, aircraft, motorcycles and armoured personnel carriers.
There are no playable warships and no playable helicopters. If you want either, the other game on this site has them.
Battle Rating and matchmaking
Enlisted sorts matches by Battle Rating, numbered one to five. You are matched against players within one step of your own rating, so a Battle Rating three player can end up against Battle Rating two or four.
You will sometimes see this described as skill-based matchmaking. It is not: the published mechanism sorts by the rating of the equipment you bring, not by how well you play. If a hidden skill component exists, Darkflow has not documented it, and we are not going to assert one.
Cost, platforms and getting in
Enlisted is free to download and play on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and S. It sells premium squads, premium vehicles and premium account time for real money.
The way that monetisation is structured has drawn sustained criticism: equipment is purchased for individual soldiers inside individual squads, so the cost of fully outfitting a lineup compounds. Whether that amounts to “pay to win” is an argument, not a fact, and we have not tried to settle it. We make no claim about what proportion of the game's content is free, because we could not source one.
Partner link
Open the official Enlisted pagePaid partner link. It opens an interstitial on this site, then the official Enlisted page at enlisted.net. We may be paid if you register.
What we could not verify
These are open questions, not omissions. We would rather leave them marked than fill them in.
- Match length. We found no published figure from the developer and no independent measurement, so we give none.
- What share of vehicles is free. No source we trust quantifies it.
- Player numbers. Neither Darkflow nor Gaijin publishes concurrent or registered player counts for Enlisted, and we are not going to infer them from a storefront chart.
- Whether the exact squad size range still holds. Squad sizes are tied to squad types, which the developer adjusts between updates. Three to nine is the range we could source; treat the ends as approximate.
- Any claim about which game is “better”. There is no measurement behind that, here or anywhere.
Where these figures come from · How we work · The War Thunder guide
Questions we get asked
How many real players are in an Enlisted match?
Ten per side in the standard modes, so twenty humans. Each of them commands an AI squad of three to nine soldiers, which is why the map feels far busier than twenty players would suggest. Custom battles can be set up with as many as 25 per side and no AI.
Is an Enlisted squad a group of human players?
No. A squad is a unit of AI soldiers that you command. You control one of them directly at any moment and can switch to another. Grouping up with friends is a separate thing from a squad.
Can you play ships in Enlisted?
No. Enlisted has no playable naval vessels. The playable types are infantry, tanks, aircraft, motorcycles and armoured personnel carriers.
What does Battle Rating mean in Enlisted?
It is the matchmaking bracket, numbered one to five. A match pairs you against players within one step of your own rating, so a Battle Rating three player can meet two or four.
Is Enlisted pay to win?
It is free to play and sells premium squads, vehicles and account time. Because equipment is bought for individual soldiers within individual squads, the progression system has been widely criticised as leaning that way. Whether it crosses the line is a judgement, not a measurement, and we have not tried to settle it here.