''Soldat'' is a 2D

multiplayer video game A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system ( couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, o ...

for Microsoft Windows. It is a

run and gun game Run(s) or RUN may refer to: Places * Run (island), one of the Banda Islands in Indonesia * Run (stream), a stream in the Dutch province of North Brabant People * Run (rapper), Joseph Simmons, now known as "Reverend Run", from the hip-hop gro ...

influenced by ''

Liero ''Liero'' is a video game for MS-DOS, first released by Finnish programmer Joosa Riekkinen in 1998. The game has been described as a real-time version of '' Worms'' (a turn-based artillery game). ''Liero'' is Finnish for ' earthworm' and ...

'' and ''

Scorched Earth A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy. Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted, which usually includes obvious weapons, transport vehicles, commun ...

'', combined with elements from ''

Counter-Strike ''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preve ...

'' and ''

Worms Worms may refer to: *Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs Places *Worms, Germany, a city ** Worms (electoral district) * Worms, Nebraska, U.S. *Worms im Veltlintal, the German name for Bormio, Italy Arts and entertai ...

''.

Development history

''Soldat'' was initially developed by Michał Marcinkowski (MM) beginning in November 2001. MM is CEO of the

independent game development An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...

grou
Transhuman Design
and is also known for his work on games such as Crimson Glory, R & link-dead. The game is coded in the

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracl ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

using the JEDI libraries. The first

public beta A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

(v0.9.4b) was released on 9 May 2002. As time passed, the game changed from being developed exclusively by MM, to having many different developers that contribute in different ways, with MM still making the executive decisions for Soldat. ''Soldat'''s head developer changed over time: Michał "MM" Marcinkowski led the project until 2008, followed until 2010 by Nick "EnEsCe" Cooper. Gregor "Shoozza" A. Cieslak lead the project from 2010 to 2016. Between 2016 and 2017 Tomasz "Falcon" Kołosowski was project lead, followed again by Gregor "Shoooza" A. Cieslak. Released on August 23, 2002 version 1.0.5b is considered the first major release of the game, though several betas and minor versions were available in the months preceding its release. Since then, the game has gone through many changes and additions. Weapon balance is often a main focus of new releases. The significant release changes were "startup" modifications in the M82A1 Barrett,

M72 LAW The M72 LAW (light anti-tank weapon, also referred to as the light anti-armor weapon or LAW as well as LAWS: light anti-armor weapons system) is a portable one-shot unguided anti-tank weapon. The solid rocket propulsion unit was developed in t ...

, and

Combat Knife A combat knife is a fighting knife designed solely for military use and primarily intended for hand-to-hand or close combat fighting.Peterson, Harold L., ''Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World'', Courier Dover Publications, , (20 ...

, as well as minor bugs with flags and maps. 1.4.2 added many major features. These included a completely new lobby system to replace the aged and unreliable original system (see the forums for problems), an option (registered only) to scale the resolution interface for a cleaner view, a

minimap A mini-map or minimap is a miniature map that is often placed at a screen corner in video games to aid players in orienting themselves within the game world. They are often only a small portion of the screen and must be selective in what details ...

(registered only),

BattlEye BattlEye is a proprietary anti-cheat software system which protects games and their players from hacking, cheating, and other forms of exploits while playing an online game. It was initially released as a third-party anti-cheat for '' Battlefield ...

- an anti-cheat system, and many bugfixes. 1.4.0 was originally intended only as a bugfix version 1.3.2, but was bumped-up to 1.4.0 due to the addition of the many new features. 1.5.0 is the first release to be handled using public beta testing. In addition to a long list of bug fixes, major new features in this version include in game radio commands, TeamSpeak2 integration and

animated GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987 ...

scenery. The version 1.6.0 - released more than two years after 1.5.0 - focuses primarily on bug fixes. It also adds a new

anti-cheat Cheating in online games is the subversion of the rules or mechanics of online video games to gain an unfair advantage over other players, generally with the use of third-party software. What constitutes cheating is dependent on the game in q ...

solution, new maps, support for

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...

resolutions, the ability to ban by hardwareID and many in-game improvements. 1.7.0 introduced some bigger changes: It included a new

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve ha ...

-based renderer with improved performance and major graphical updates. Released in January 2016, 1.7.1 is the latest version of the game. It brought 4K HD quality to the player models and to more scenery. As well as weapon mod changes and addition of

Hitbox Collision detection is the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. Collision detection is a classic issue of computational geometry and has applications in various computing fields, primarily in computer grap ...

Modifiers for the head, chest & legs. As of April 2018, the current goal being to release the next version on

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizat ...

. An

open sourcing Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...

of the game was announced for 2018 after the Steam release, following a successful

change.org Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care abo ...

petition. On 31 March 2020 ''Soldat'' 1.7.1 finally got on Steam, even though official date on Steam Store page was on April 1. During first hours on Steam ''Soldat'' hit close to 400 active players at the same time and game roams o
over 130 user reviews
with general score as "Very Positive". On May 26, 2020 the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

of ''Soldat'' was released under

MIT license The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license co ...

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...

. The assets followed shortly after under a

Creative Commons license A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

, the

CC-BY A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

4.0.

Gameplay

In ''Soldat'', the player controls a small customizable soldier who possesses jet boots. These boots allow the soldier to fly for a relatively short time, before needing to automatically regenerate their fuel. The amount of flying possible at a time, and fuel regeneration rate, both depend on individual maps. The game is normally played over the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

or a

LAN Lan or LAN may also refer to: Science and technology * Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics * Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in sp ...

, but it is possible to play

offline In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" o ...

against

bots The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Br ...

. There are a variety o
game modes
to choose from, ranging from the popular free-for-all (

Deathmatch Deathmatch, also known as free-for-all, is a gameplay mode integrated into many shooter games, including first-person shooter (FPS), and real-time strategy (RTS) video games, where the goal is to kill (or "frag") the other players' characters a ...

Rambo Rambo is a surname with Norwegian (Vestfold) and Swedish origins. It possibly originated with '' ramn'' + '' bo'', meaning "raven's nest". It has variants in French (''Rambeau'', ''Rambaut'', and ''Rimbaud'') and German (''Rambow''). It is now best ...

match, and Pointmatch) to the team-based (

Capture the Flag Capture the flag (CTF) is a traditional outdoor sport where two or more teams each have a flag (or other markers) and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's "base", and bring it safely back to their own base. ...

; Infiltration, Teammatch, and Hold the Flag). In some modes holding or defending a

flag A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design emp ...

is the primary goal, where in others it is simply to obtain the most frags, with minor objectives (for example, Pointmatch sports a yellow flag which doubles its bearer's points). The most popular game modes are Capture the Flag and Deathmatch. For all game modes, the basic objective is to kill enemy players. Upon

spawning Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aqua ...

, the weapons menu is displayed and the player may pick from an arsenal of weapons. Frag grenades are also supplied by default and more can picked up from boxes laying around the

maps A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Althoug ...

("Grenade Kit" or "Nade Kit" respectively). Jet boots are used to move around the maps, which typically consists of 2-3 levels/floors, or disorganized, floating boulders. Some servers enable temporary-lasting

power-up In video games, a power-up is an object that adds temporary benefits or extra abilities to the player character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a permanent benefit that can be used at any time chos ...

s that grant multiplied damage (Berserker), invisibility ( Predator mode), a

flamethrower A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World Wa ...

along with temporary invincibility (FlameGod), or Cluster Grenades (which temporarily replace regular grenades with three of more powerful, modified versions) or even a Bulletproof Vest (effectiveness of the vest depends on the distance from the firer of the bullet, and the vest slowly decreases as it soaks up damage, disappearing after absorbing a certain amount of damage, though there is no time limit). Health crates (known in the game as "Medikits") are available in many locations for healing injury back to 100% no matter how much a player is injured. Upon death and after waiting for a server-specified amount of time (on average 5 seconds), players re-spawn and may choose another weapon—this cycle repeats for the duration of the map, unless Survival Mode is enabled (in which case a spawning system similar to ''

'' is used). After a certain allotted time (on average 15 or 20 minutes), the map changes and scores are reset as players continue in another round. Players can chat with each other throughout matches (and to their own teams, for cooperative team-based game modes). Most games are fast-paced and chaotic. Bodies often explode in a spectacle of blood and body parts, sometimes being hurled clear across the map. Besides its

ragdoll physics Ragdoll physics is a type of procedural animation used by physics engines, which is often used as a replacement for traditional static death animations in video games and animated films. As computers increased in power, it became possible to do ...

, the game's engine, written in the

Borland Delphi Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, ...

programming language, employs realistic concepts such as

momentum In Newtonian mechanics, momentum (more specifically linear momentum or translational momentum) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction. If is an object's mass ...

and

gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the str ...

. Fall damage and

recoil Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force r ...

are also taken into account when Realistic Mode is enabled, and supply crates, dropped weapons, and grenades realistically tumble down steep hills; another effect is the flag's realistic waving as a player runs with it.

Weapons

There are ten primary weapons and four secondary weapons to choose from. A total of any two weapons may be held at any given time. Players can drop their current weapon and pick up others from defeated enemies. It is also possible to create server-specific weapon mods. The choice of weapon is largely dependent on the type of map, preferred tactics and weapons choice of the players' enemies. ''Soldat'' aims to create balance between all of the weapons (also known as Weapon Mod), in order to make all weapons viable. A lot of tweaking was done (and is done until today) in order to achieve this goal. The matter of the weapon mod is quite controversial. This has led to the existence of an entire section of the official community message board devoted to discussion about the weapons' game balance.

Bunny hopping

''Soldat'' is one of many games in which

bunny hopping Strafing is the act of moving sideways in a video game relative to the player's forward direction. Strafing allows a player to keep the camera focused on a target such as an enemy, while moving in a different direction. Techniques Circle strafi ...

is possible. Players can travel much faster via frequent leaping, rather than ordinary running, and often players who do not bunny hop are left behind. However, even when bunny hopping, a basic maximum speed limits horizontal movement. In addition, leaping before thrusting substantially boosts horizontal movement, as the leap gives horizontal push while the jet boots must only manage the player's vertical ascent.

Maps

Maps in ''Soldat'' are 2D arenas, most being tailored to fast-paced game-play. Deathmatch maps are shared with Pointmatch (PM), Rambomatch (RM), and Teammatch (TM or TDM, for Team Deathmatch) gamemodes, whereas Capture-the-Flag (CTF), Infiltration (INF) and Hold-the-Flag (HTF) have their own sets of specialized maps. There are currently 97 default maps in the game for the different game modes. Every map consists of numerous textured

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed '' polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two t ...

s carefully positioned in relation to one another. Unlike ''

'', a major inspiration of ''Soldat'', landscape is non-deformable, though it can be interacted with in other ways. Scenery, such as bushes and sandbags, may conceal players and aid in

camping Camping is an outdoor activity involving overnight stays away from home, either without shelter or using basic shelter such as a tent, or a recreational vehicle. Typically, participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors in more natu ...

and sniping. Polygons can be given special attributes to simulate lethal death pits, icy terrain, health-regenerative platforms, and more. Weather effects (snow, rain, and sandstorm) are used on some maps. Some servers enable the powerful stationary M2 turret specified by particular maps (usually CTF and INF) which players can man. There are several known programs for mapping. The original map editor program is MapMaker 1.2, by Michał Marcinkowski himself. It has a unique control scheme that includes using the right mouse button to navigate the map and the control, shift, and alt keys combined with the left or right mouse button to perform functions. Another popular ''Soldat'' mapping program i
PolyWorks
which has a different control scheme and a much more complex interface.

Community

The new lobby server indicates it holds a record number of lobby requests at 71459 per day. The whole number of players has not been counted but the official Soldat Forums have over 12000 registered members. Map editors are also available. Many ''Soldat'' players have developed and distributed their own programs for use with the game. These include, but are not limited to, map editors, weapon editors, statistics programs, mods, server-side statistical webpage-plugins (such as U13SSS and Zitro-stats), and auto-join applications. There are many fan web-pages serving a multitude of purposes and tastes, mainly different clans for the official tournaments the game's community sponsors.

Sub game-modes

Realistic Mode

As the ''Soldat'' community has grown, so has the popularity of the sub-gamemode Realistic (often abbreviated "R" or "R-mode"). Realistic makes the game have more realistic characteristics to it; the weapons are more powerful and they have recoil (the cross-hair moves upwards with each successive shot), there is a realistic field of view and players sustain greater damage when they hit the ground at high speeds. This mode emphasizes the need for proper tactics more strongly than the standard game mode, sometimes regarded as requiring more skill.

Survival Mode

All players spawn together at the beginning. Once players die, they must wait until the round is decided, then every player spawns again to start the next round. This game mode also provides a break from the normal non-stop action and more intensive battles. In most realistic servers, survival mode is also activated. These servers are referred to as Realistic-Survival (R/S) servers. R/S mode games usually consist of short length battles between two sides in Capture the Flag mode. Around the time of ''Soldat'' v1.3.1, most R/S matches developed a certain "gentlemen's rule" that a player should not capture the flag unless the opposing team is defeated. Because this is an unwritten rule, it is confusing to most people new to R/S servers. "Capping" or "Running" in an R/S server is usually considered bad etiquette, because it effectively defeats the other team without having to kill them. In more popular servers ran by R/S clans, capturing the flag is a legitimate tactic, as the game mode is still "Capture the Flag", not "Team Deathmatch", which only involves eradicating the enemy team. On the other hand, killing the other team ''and'' capping the flag in the few seconds remaining before the round ends, is called a doublecap, earns the team 2 points instead of the normal single point and is accepted in most servers, although many have implemented anti-doublecap scripts to prevent it.

Advance Mode

In Advance mode players start the match armed only with secondary weapons. Primary guns are progressively unlocked as a reward for frags. With its forced low-tech phase and limited weapon choices, advance mode is the often considered the most tactical ''Soldat'' mode. Any of these sub-game modes may be combined with the other game modes, or it can be active by itself.

Reception

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson. Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...

Jim Rossignol James Michael Rossignol (born July 1978) is a British video game journalist and critic, as well as an author. He has also branched out into games, founding the company Big Robot in 2010. Biography Rossignol started his career as a reporter ...

named ''Soldat'' among a top 20 list of ''Summer of PC''

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

games in 2006. Thinkdigit included it July 2008 in its

cover disk Covermount (sometimes written cover mount) is the name given to storage media (containing software and or audiovisual media) or other products (ranging from toys to flip-flops) packaged as part of a magazine or newspaper. The name comes from the ...

. Second release on

, 31 March 2020, scored a general Very Positiv
over 130 user reviews
During first hours on Steam, ''Soldat'' hit close to 400 active players at the same time.