Foxhole
Last updated: 2025-11-16
- Unique, rewarding, unparalleled war simulation.
- Engaging community and essential teamwork.
- Diverse, player-driven warfare, immense depth.
- Very high barrier to entry, steep learning curve.
- Pervasive cheating, server instability, and bugs.
- Frustrating, clunky gameplay; tedious logistics.
Emotions
Players feel satisfied by contributing meaningfully to the war effort through various roles, from logistics to combat, and witnessing the impact of their actions in a player-driven, persistent world. This is often enhanced by overcoming challenges, achieving collective goals with a helpful and organized community, and appreciating the game's depth, unique sandbox nature, and realistic simulation of war.
Frustration stems from malicious player behavior, such as griefing, theft, and the prevalence of 'alt accounts' that disrupt gameplay and waste player effort, often compounded by perceived developer inaction. Other causes include a steep learning curve, complex or clunky mechanics, balance issues, and repetitive, unrewarding tasks that lead to burnout.
Excitement arises from the game's unique, immersive, and dynamic player-driven warfare, offering diverse roles and endless possibilities for strategic plays and intense combat situations. Players are thrilled by large-scale battles, emergent gameplay moments, and the ongoing development and updates that continue to deepen the experience.
Disappointment primarily comes from the game's current state, including perceived decline in quality, balance issues, and the negative impact of recent updates on gameplay. Players are also disheartened by community toxicity, lack of protection for player-built assets, and developer inaction on critical issues like alt accounts, which undermine the game's potential.
Joy is experienced through engaging in diverse activities and exciting battles, often enhanced by social interaction, humor, and strong community bonds formed in cooperative gameplay. Players find unexpected fun in various roles, from logistics to frontline combat, and enjoy the overall positive and immersive experience.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 78% · Negative 22%. Score: 22 / 100
Positives:
- Many players highlight the game as a unique, one-of-a-kind experience that stands out in the genre, offering immense value for its price. Despite its demanding nature and occasional hardships, the overall gameplay is consistently fun, addicting, and deeply satisfying. This combination makes it a highly recommended and captivating title that often exceeds initial expectations.
- Players consistently praise the game's outstanding community, describing it as friendly, welcoming, and exceptionally helpful, particularly towards newcomers. The strong emphasis on teamwork and coordination is fundamental to the experience, fostering deep camaraderie and a shared sense of purpose. This is especially true when playing with friends or within organized regiments and clans.
- The game delivers an exceptionally deep and realistic large-scale war simulation. Players highly value the persistent world, diverse combat roles (infantry, tanks, artillery, naval), intricate player-driven logistics, and comprehensive building mechanics that mimic a full war effort. Every player's action, from frontline combat to managing supply chains, feels impactful and contributes directly to the ongoing conflict.
- The game offers significant depth and complexity, featuring a vast array of mechanics, roles, and activities that ensure continuous engagement and learning. Players appreciate the freedom to choose diverse playstyles and constantly discover new content, often leading to hundreds or even thousands of hours of highly replayable gameplay. This extensive content prevents boredom and rewards long-term investment.
Negatives:
- Many players find the game overwhelmingly complex and difficult to learn, especially solo. The lack of comprehensive in-game tutorials forces new players to seek external guides or veteran assistance, creating a steep and frustrating learning curve.
- Players express widespread dissatisfaction with the game's current state, citing poor quality of life features, numerous bugs, and a general feeling of being unfinished. There is a perception that developers are unresponsive, neglecting core issues, and releasing updates that often introduce more problems than they solve.
- The game suffers from widespread issues with alt accounts used for spying, sabotage, and griefing, which undermine fair play and trust. Players also report other forms of cheating and abuse of game mechanics, compounded by an ineffective reporting system and a perceived lack of developer action.
- Core gameplay mechanics, particularly vehicle controls and the shooting system, are frequently described as clunky, unrealistic, and frustratingly inaccurate. This leads to a repetitive loop of dying and respawning, exacerbated by frequent personal griefing and a feeling of unrewarding effort.
- The community is frequently described as highly toxic, hostile, and unhelpful, particularly towards new players. This includes verbal abuse, teamkilling, mass-reporting by regiments, and a lack of respect for individual contributions, often exacerbated by perceived non-existent moderation.
Gameplay:
- The game offers an immense range of player roles, from frontline combat (infantry, tanks, artillery, naval, partisan) to extensive backline logistics (resource extraction, crafting, transportation, building defenses). Players must cooperate across these roles to sustain a persistent, large-scale war effort, influencing everything from individual battles to the entire supply chain.
- The game is fundamentally a cooperative, massively multiplayer experience built around teamwork and communication. Joining a regiment (clan) and using voice/text chat is crucial for learning game mechanics, coordinating actions, and fully enjoying the game, as solo play is severely limited.
- The game presents a significant learning curve, requiring considerable time, patience, and often external resources (guides, mentors) to master its complex mechanics and diverse roles. Players should expect a substantial time commitment, including resource gathering and grinding, to become proficient.
- Operating advanced vehicles, especially tanks, requires significant player cooperation, typically needing a crew of 2-5 players for optimal performance. This mechanic emphasizes teamwork and specialization within vehicle roles.
- Players can engage in partisan activities, involving infiltrating enemy territory to disrupt logistics, ambush supply trucks, sabotage facilities, or steal resources. This adds a dynamic layer of behind-the-lines PvP and strategic disruption.
Performance:
- Players frequently experience significant server lag, high ping, frequent disconnections, and 'VAC check failed' errors. This severely impacts gameplay, with some players needing VPNs to maintain a connection, and leading to jerky movements and vehicle teleportation. The Canadian server location specifically causes issues for distant players.
- Players report various bugs and glitches, including getting stuck in textures, issues with squad reservation for vehicles/buildings, and general clipping problems. Some of these bugs have reportedly remained unfixed for years, impacting gameplay fluidity.
- Players occasionally experience issues requiring an audio device restart, indicating potential sound system instability. This specific technical problem has been noted by some users.
Recommendations:
- Playing with others, specifically joining a clan or regiment and utilizing voice chat (like Discord), is considered crucial for a fulfilling experience. The game is not designed for solo play, and groups help new players learn mechanics, access all features, and enhance overall enjoyment.
- Players overwhelmingly recommend this game for its unique, grand-scale military simulation, strategy, and teamwork elements. It provides an immersive war experience unparalleled by other titles, appealing to fans of mil-sims, RTS, logistics, and collaborative gameplay.
- The game has a steep learning curve and requires significant time investment, making it less suitable for casual players. New players are advised to be patient, watch tutorials, ask questions, and embrace the complexity to overcome initial challenges and fully appreciate the game's depth.
- A significant concern among players is the prevalence of 'alt account' abuses, issues with the reporting system, and perceived faction imbalances. Many reviews indicate that while the game has great potential, these critical problems detract from the experience and need developer attention to secure a stronger recommendation.
Miscellaneous:
- Players frequently report investing hundreds to thousands of hours into the game very quickly, indicating its highly addictive nature. This significant time commitment can lead to burnout if not managed, yet many find it challenging to stop playing.
- The game thrives on player interaction, with many forging friendships and building communities within it. Effective communication through voice and local chat, along with joining a regiment (clan), is crucial for success, enjoyment, and learning game mechanics.
- Players are looking forward to future updates, specifically mentioning the 'Airborne' content, and hope for continued fixes and expansions, such as naval battles. There is also a desire for the developers to maintain strong engagement with the community and address issues like toxicity.
- While the game offers multiple language options, many players suggest that a good grasp of English is highly beneficial, if not necessary, for optimal communication and team coordination. This can significantly impact a new player's onboarding experience.
- Some players express concern over perceived population imbalances, suggesting it negatively impacts gameplay and overshadows otherwise positive aspects. They hope developers will address this issue, which they assume might be an intended game mechanic.
