Enlisted beginner's guide: squads, Battle Rating and winning objectives

Enlisted is a free-to-play World War II shooter developed by Darkflow Software and published by Gaijin Network Ltd. It runs on PC (Windows and Linux on Steam), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, It first launched in April 2021 and has been on Steam since July 16, 2024. The twist is in the store pitch: you don't control one soldier, you lead a whole squad, in battles with hundreds of soldiers, tanks and aircraft.

That one idea changes how you play. Dying isn't the end of your run, positioning matters more than aim, and the soldier who builds a spawn point often does more than the one with the most kills. This guide covers squads, Battle Rating, the roles worth learning first, vehicles, progression and the mistakes that cost new players the most.

Your first-week priorities

1. Finish the tutorial, then open practice mode. It stays available afterwards. Use it to test weapons, tanks and planes without pressure.
2. Pick one nation and stick with it. Each nation has its own army and research tree, and splitting your time slows everything down.
3. Check your line-up's Battle Rating before every queue.
4. Put at least one engineer squad in your line-up and learn to build rally points.
5. Do daily tasks and the current event. They add rewards on top of normal battle income.

How squads work

Before you spawn, you choose a squad: riflemen, assaulters, engineers, machine gunners, radio operators, tank crews, pilots and more. You play one soldier, and the rest of the squad follows you under AI control.

When your soldier dies, you jump straight into the next living squad member. Only when the whole squad is down do you go back to the spawn screen and pick another squad. So a squad works like a set of extra lives that travel together.

Your AI soldiers are only as good as the place you lead them. They follow you, and you can order them to hold a position or regroup. Ten soldiers sprinting across an open field make one easy target for a machine gunner or artillery. The same squad moving along a hedge line or through buildings is much harder to wipe.

What to do:

• Move from cover to cover and let the squad catch up before you push.
• Use a hold order to park soldiers on a capture point while you scout.
• When you switch to a new soldier, check where you are before you move. You may be in a different spot from where your last soldier fell.

Battle Rating: the number that decides your matches

Enlisted used to split each nation across several separate campaigns. Since the December 2023 "Merge" update, each nation has a single army: the USA, the USSR, Germany and Japan. Every squad, weapon and vehicle carries a Battle Rating (BR) from I to V, roughly early war to late war.

The rule that catches beginners: your line-up's BR is set by its highest-rated item. One late-war rifle on one soldier, or one advanced tank in one slot, can pull your whole line-up into matches against much stronger equipment.

Before you press Battle:

1. Look at the BR shown for your line-up.
2. If it's higher than expected, check each squad for the item that raised it.
3. Swap that item out, or build a separate line-up for that BR.

Low BR matches are a good place to learn. Weapons are simpler, vehicles are lighter, and you'll meet many other new players. Move up once your squads at your current BR are well upgraded, not as soon as something new unlocks.

Which roles to learn first

Role	What it does	When to play it
Rifleman	Accurate, flexible infantry	Learning the pace and the maps
Assaulter	Automatic weapons for close fights	Towns, trenches, capture zones
Engineer	Builds rally points, ammo boxes and defenses	Every match, at least one squad
Machine gunner	Heavy suppressive fire	Holding a point or a long sightline
Radio operator	Calls in artillery from the map	Breaking a defended objective

Start with riflemen or assaulters to learn movement and cover. Then add an engineer squad as early as you can. If you take a radio operator, aim artillery slightly behind the enemy's capture zone, where their rally points usually sit, not on your own team's attackers.

Beach assaults show why spawn points matter: the closer your team spawns, the less open ground it crosses. Screenshot: Darkflow Software / Gaijin Network Ltd via Steam

Engineers and rally points

The most important thing an engineer builds is the rally point, a spawn point the whole team can use. In a game where a long run to the objective costs lives and time, a rally point near the fight decides many captures.

How to use it well:

• Spawn as the engineer, walk to a covered spot near the objective, and build there. A flanking position the enemy doesn't watch often survives longest.
• Stay out of direct sight lines. A rally point the enemy can see gets destroyed fast.
• Add an ammo box next to it so your team can refill grenades and magazines.
• Bring more than one engineer squad, so you can rebuild after the enemy finds your spawn.

If you see an enemy rally point, destroy it. Shutting down their spawn near an objective is often worth more than a handful of kills.

Tanks, planes and the new off-road squads

Vehicle squads let you join the fight with armor or from the air.

• Tanks hit hard but die to infantry with anti-tank weapons and explosive packs. Stay near your own infantry, avoid narrow streets, and keep moving.
• Planes can bomb objectives and hunt enemy aircraft. Learn take-off, flying and bombing in practice mode first.
• Off-road vehicles arrived with the "Off-road Patrol" update in late September 2026. Each army's research tree gained squads with machine-gun-armed off-roaders that carry extra grenade boxes, and you can now capture points from these vehicles and motorcycles without getting out.

As infantry, keep at least one anti-tank option in your line-up. When a tank parks on your objective and nobody can answer it, the capture is usually lost.

Progression: research, silver and upgrades

You unlock new squads, weapons and vehicles through your army's research tree by playing battles. You also earn silver, which you spend on soldiers and upgrades. Squads level up and their soldiers gain experience, which opens upgrades over time.

Spend with a plan:

• Upgrade the squads you actually use, not every squad you own.
• Buy new soldiers when a squad needs them, not just because you have silver.
• Follow one branch of the research tree toward a goal, such as a better engineer or assault squad, instead of spreading research thin.
• Watch events and the Battle Pass. "Reinforcements received" events, for example, reward unique squads and gear that would take longer to research.

Mistakes to avoid

• Queuing with one high-BR item that drags your whole line-up up a tier.
• Running your full squad across open ground in a tight bunch.
• Skipping engineers and leaving your team to spawn far from the objective.
• Driving tanks into tight streets with no infantry nearby.
• Calling artillery on a point your own team is already capturing.
• Spreading silver and research across too many squads and nations.

What to do next

Once infantry feels comfortable, try a tank and a plane in practice mode, then add one vehicle squad to your line-up. Check our Enlisted news coverage for the latest updates and events, and read our setup guide for the best PC settings.

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