Post Scriptum BETA – Initial Thoughts

Platform: PC
How was the game received?: Personal Purchase
Genre: Tactical/Realistic/Historical FPS
Release Date:  August 9th 2018 – Currently Open BETA (BETA Access Requires Purchase)
Cost: 33.99 CDN
Where to buy it: Get it Here!

Reviewers PC Specs
Processor: Intel i7-5930k – 3.5GHz 6-Core Haswell-E
RAM: 64GB DDR4 3200MHz
Graphics: Strix GTX 1080TI OC 11GB
Monitor:  BenQ XL2720Z – 27″ 144Hz, 1ms Response

Description of the game

Developed by Periscope Games located in Rennes France Post Scriptum is a recent BETA release focused on realistic, historically accurate, large scale FPS games set in WW2.

The name definitely raises eyebrows as it’s not a typical name for a WWII game.  The reasoning can be found on their website.

"Post Scriptum is in fact a self-assumed stance of neutrality. When thinking about the title and visual concept, we wanted to avoid a name that glorified or desensitized war. Certainly not one that hails ideologies over human condition. War is anything but awesome and we figured that war letters were the best vehicle to portray these men with the dignity they deserve. They just tried to cope with war the best they could."

You may have come across this developers games before as they are the makers of Liberty’s Highway a modding team for the game SQUAD with a lot of similarities set in modern day.

Built on the Unreal 4 Engine Post Scriptum focuses on large scale battles supporting 100 players in 50v50 Allies vs. Axis WWII combat.  Currently there are 5 Maps each around 140 Square Kilometers.  Each map is based on aerial photos, maps and archives from WWII.

Here is a list of the other features including plenty of vehicles, weapons, base building and fortifications and good ol’ fashioned Modding Support!

Although the games are very similar, Post Scriptum offers a fresh take on World War II and some nice differences that helps strike a better balance between ultra-realistic and down right fun.

Post Scriptum encourages and at times outright demands team play.  When you join the game you will be asked to choose the Axis or Allies.  From there you will be asked to join a infantry, logistics or armor section.  Each section has a Squad leader who can communicate with other SLs and the commander to coordinate efforts on the battle field.  Each section allows for a limited number of different roles from Medic to Machine Gunner, Sniper and mortar teams and many variants each with their own unique loadout.

The Developers seem very active with the community and support an Official Discord Server found HERE.  They actively request feedback and bug reports and are always trolling around the Discord server.

Graphics Review

Post Scriptum has fantastic visuals the maps are very large but full of personality, nothing seems copied from another area, every square kilometer of the map seems unique.  This is probably due to their use of Arial Photos and Maps to model the maps off real world locations and this is an amazing touch.

The buildings are also very well done from the outside, they are a bit bare on the inside however this may be done on purpose to reduce clutter that can get in the way of gameplay.  The towns are unique, roads and railways look really cool and authentic.

The attention to detail is also very apparent, they mention that uniforms are photo scanned using actual uniforms from WWII and I will say this is a nice touch.

The performance is also pretty stable, I was hitting over 100FPS pretty regularly and dipping down to 60FPS in large scale battles, with the slow methodic gameplay this was not very noticeable.  This is one of the best performing BETA games of this scale I have played in a long time.

Overall Graphics Score 8/10

Music Review

Created by Scott Tobin and recorded in Budapest by the Budapest Score Orchestra the music is fantastic and full of emotion.  I picture a soldier writing a letter home in the silent of night prior to a large upcoming offensive the next morning.  The music, in my opinion, conveys the heartbreak of war without glorifying it in a very beautiful way.

I’m not one to pay too much attention to a games soundtrack but the Main Theme and Leap of Faith specifically hit me right in the feels.

The soundtrack of Post Scriptum cam be found on Spotify HERE.

Overall Music Score: 10/10

Story Review

Based on World War II the battles tend to take you through the historical places of Europe.  There is no story other then one experiences on the battle field.  We will skip this section for the time being.

Cinematics Review

No Cinematics.

Content Review

Out of the box the content is fantastic.  50 Drivable vehicles, placeable gun installations like MG’s and Mortars, trucks, tanks, anti-tank rocket launchers just amazing amount of content.

Players also have the ability to build various defenses including sandbag walls, barbed wire, gun installations etc.  This really is a great feeling to be on a logistics squad digging in two strategic objectives  back from the front line in anticipation of warding off multiple takes and infantry squads in hopes of halting the advance of enemy team.

Controls Review

Definitely more advanced then your typical run of the mill COD style shooter the player will need to know a few more controls but its pretty easy once you make a few checks in the options to find what you need.

Nothing is given to you, aside from seeing your own team and squad members on the main map everything else is by way of communicating with your squad leader.  For example, if you spot an approaching enemy team, they wont appear spotted on the mini map, you need to relay the coordinates to the squad leader who can then place a marker on the map for everyone to see.  IE: “Enemy Tank Spotted at E-5 NumPad 7”

Mortars and Artillery are also blind to where the shells are landing and require a spotter to help adjust aim.

Even when firing a bolt action rifle and additional right mouse click is needed to make your character use the bolt to eject the spent casing and load another bullet in the chamber.

Overall Control Score: 7/10

Gameplay Review

As I mentioned earlier Post Scriptum strikes a great balance between realism and fun.  Nothings given to you, you require team work to get almost everything done but the game is easy to get accustomed.

There are some odd bugs, its incredibly easy to get a spawn truck stuck in a ditch, meaning you cant move it up when you are trying to advance.  There is a reset feature which places the vehicle back down and you can play around with it to get the truck unstuck but it takes a long time.

There has been disconnects, not every match but sometimes it crashes, I’ve experiences this twice in the 10 games I’ve played I’m sure it will be ironed out.

I’ve experience this pink screen too, I could hear everything around me, hear myself walking, shooting my gun but nothing rendered, this only happened once when I was trying to reset a spawn vehicle, I had to quit to fix it.

Obvious bugs aside the game is quite enjoyable and performs well for a BETA access title.  The frames stay around 70 during hard action on pretty high graphic settings.  The action is quite intense and they have figured out how to focus everyone’s attention onto major objectives so you feel part of a larger scale war and don’t have squads spread out across their 140KM Squared map.  Below is a screenshot of the squads advancing on a town.

The gameplay is pretty realistic too, run and gun will get you killed, you need to play your moves and move slowly and push back enemy bush by bush and building by building.

Running and moving through bushes drains your stamina.  Stamina is needed to “zoom in” on your cross hairs when scoped in, a sorta focus mechanic.  Its important when running long distances to watch your stamina.  They even introduced a water mechanic, drinking from your Cantina will help restore stamina quickly.

They also have a suppressing mechanic to make it more realistic, being fired upon will cause your screen to darken and cause tunnel vision.

Like many games there is a Medic position on each squad that can revive downed teammates, you first need to inject them with something, I’m guessing morphine or some other drug that brings them back to conscious then you heal them to full health with a bandage.

They add how far medic is away on your death screen so you can make the decision to “Give Up” and respawn or wait for the medic to come revive you.

Playing as a medic can be frustrating as people don’t warn you that they are surrounded by a squad and you end up walking into your own demise.  If you are not save to revive, just give up lol… Medics lives matter too 🙂

the sniper scopes are pretty cool to as they render the whole scope and don’t just zoom in your screen like many games, gives the feeling you are actually looking down a scope.

At the end of the day this is a game that requires teamwork, participation and strategy, there is unlimited ways to accomplish the goals but having a team that’s coordinated and can work together will make the experience move fun.

I am really enjoying the gameplay, the community I’ve experience so far is very good and fun to play with and most games are not one sided and pretty evenly balanced.

The servers seem stable, and hit detection is pretty good.  They also introduced a “hit sound” to indicate a bullet made contact with an enemy which is a nice touch to give you some feedback for those really far engagements.

Compared to SQUAD I find the action is more consistent, more people are concentrated over one main objective at a time and its really fun to play.

With a large group of people this game would be an absolute riot.

Closing Thoughts

Overall this is a great game with many improvements over SQUAD, their first stab at largescale realistic combat.  The bugs are present but infrequent, and I’m sure they will get ironed out.  I am really enjoying the game so far, its pretty solid, performs well and the hit detection from what I can tell is bang on.

With considerations with this game being in BETA I would rate Post Scriptum a solid 8/10.  if you enjoy more realistic, tactical combat which rewards planning and strategy over twitch movements this is a great game for you.

I would say that with the features, vehicles, optimization, performance its worth a purchase today to get into the BETA.  This is in my opinion a complete game and I haven’t noticed any missing features, the only real problem is the bugs but this is an easy fix and is not game breaking based on there infrequency.