A hearty welcome to you my fellow doorkickers! The purpose of this guide is to build on a basic knowledge of room entry and squad movement tactics drawn from my experiences and training as a real-world operator. Of course this game isn't quite like real-life but the concept of cover, angles, and movement are actually really applicable to the game. This will be the first part of a short series and is intended to be a general overview of some concepts that I will get into in more detail in other guides.

In order to get the most out of this guide you will need to already have a bit of understanding including basic room entry tactics and terms such as "button hook", "slicing the pie", and other such fancy jargon.

Throughout the images used in this guide, anytime you see a red circled painted on the image this is meant to represent known or potential suspect locations that are of most concern to the current situation. Red lines represent potential enemy lines of sight which I use to illustrate some principles of movement. Also note that this is a guide about movement and cover and as such I will not cover the use of flashbangs, stingers, or breaching charges.

Lastly, please note that there is more than one school of thought of CQB tactics and the instructions I give here are based on the particular training I received and a bit of personal preference. This is not the only way, but if you do it well, death will surely elude you.

Alright so, now that you have a basic understanding of how to clear a room without eating bullets, allow me to get into some slightly more advanced concepts that this and future guides will build on.



Adjacent Spaces
A major point I want to hammer home is this: the majority of deadly enemy fire you will encounter does not come from the room you are entering but rather from connected areas. We call these "adjacent spaces" and it could refer to a room, hallway, or potentially a window. It might seem counter-intuitive to divert your attention away from your immediate surroundings but as this guide goes on and I show you some examples of why, I think you'll come to agree.

360 Security
Perhaps the most important thing to remember, 360 security refers to constantly maintaining 360 degree visual and weapon coverage around your operators. This is often not entirely possible in scenarios with only two operators (this would almost never happen in real life), but in those with four members it is not only possible but mandatory for survival. I will show examples of this concept later in the guide.

Masking
This technique is sometimes called by other names but I have always called it "Masking". This is essentially a technique to use in order to help maintain the aforementioned 360 security. What this refers to is a movement in which one or more operators move in sync with another while strafing and covering that other operator's back or side angle. This is EXTREMELY useful in moving past open door ways, hallways, and windows. It's ok if it doesn't make sense right now, I just wanted you to know the term. There will be many examples in this guide to illustrate the technique for you!

Overcommiting
This is a very common mistake among beginners when executing room clearances and can often be deadly. It refers to advancing an operator too far into a room or along his wall thus risking the possibility of being exposed to fire from, you guessed it, an adjacent space. You'll see this in practice in pictures.

"Action time beats reaction time."
Force the issue. Make the enemy react to your movements and take advantage of the split second you will have when you surprise your enemy.

Moving where the space is
This is more applicable in the real-world to help maintain coordinated movement and coverage than in this game but it is still relevant. Essentially, what I mean when I refer to this in the guide is that there usually little value in operators stacking the same space as angles can usually be better covered by operators moving into the space that is available to them and filling holes in the coverage.

Alright let's get started! As I'm assuming you already know some basics, the following screenshot should look and sound familiar to you. Before blindly entering the room at great risk, Officer Blue is going to "slice the pie" and see as much of the room as he safely can.



Notice that Officer Blue does not simply strafe across the doorway in a straight line. There are a couple reasons for this. He maximizes the angles both of what he can see and, importantly, of how shielded he is from enemy fire. By arcing around the doorway from slightly further off, the doorway itself becomes concealment for him, reducing his time of exposure and limiting the enemy angles for a shot.



Officer Blue completed his pie slicing duties and notice the blood stain on the corner of the room. A suspect was spotted and shot but not killed. Now we know for sure where one threat is, but getting fixated on this could be fatal. There are still many other angles to consider.



In this image, I've marked the most likely places for a suspect to be hiding with red circles. Remember that most suspects will hide in corners or behind some type of cover. Though it's possible they'll be standing in the middle of the room, it's extremely unlikely. Now, in continuing with the entry, both officers could button hook their respective corners, but that wouldn't make much sense here. Officer Blue has already seen the right side of the room and even made contact with a suspect. Officer Green has only seen a fraction of the left side of the room so if he were to button hook, he would be entering very unfamiliar territory. Instead, both operators are going to move into the space that they see, simultaneously providing us the first example of "masking". Notice that Officer Green sticks to his wall, covers the left corner for Officer Blue, and does not overcommit into view of the adjacent spaces. Look what happens below.



Bam! Literally. Officer Blue kills the suspect he previously contacted and continues clearing his side of the room. Look how the timing was coordinated so that Officer Green covered Blue's back from a possible threat in the left corner. This allowed Blue to introduce the suspect to Mr. Lead without having to worry about a severe backache. Notice also that neither operator wastes time or life by standing in the lane of fire from the adjacent space down the hall. They both continue to move in a way that reduces or eliminates dangerous angles.

Ok now that we've made a safe and effective entry, it's time to move on down the hallway. There are several options for how to procede here but first you have to ask yourself a couple questions. Where is the next most immediate threat? Where are my best and worst angles? I'm young and full of dreams, how can I not die?



All things considered, I decided to make entry to the room on the right. The room on the left would maybe be ok, but it's easier to clear the next rooms by doing it the way I did. The worst possible move would have been to procede straight or into the second room on the right. Look around at all the angles from adjacent spaces that we would have had to cover. Not pretty. That said, there are still a few dangerous angles to consider so here's how we defeat them. Officer Green is going to button hook and cover the left angle, strafing in sync with Officer Blue as he approaches the next room, being careful not to overcommit and move into a dangerous angle from the second room on the right. Officer Blue needs to take a quick look ahead at the end of the hall and then be careful not to overcommit, exposing himself to two dangerous angles.



On entry, there's three primary threat areas, all marked with red circles. It would be dangerous for Officer Blue to try and cover them all, but it would also be dangerous for Green to leave the uncleared hallway and room on the left uncovered for too long. The solution here is for Officer Blue to button hook, immediately clearing the left corner and refocusing on the right side of the room. As Officer Green enters, he will quickly scan the top right corner since Blue will have his back turned. Green then returns to cover the the hallway while Blue finishes clearing.



Alright cool, the room was cleared without incident and now we're ready to move on. This time, Officer Green is going to make entry to the room on the right because he is closer to the entryway and it would be impractical to swap around positions so Officer Blue will now mask. Look at all them angles tho. As Green enters the room, he is also effectively masking for Blue who needs a second to cross the doorway and you NEVER want to cross a doorway you aren't covering. Blue masks for Green's movement then quickly ducks into the near corner, clearing it of threats and turning back around to cover the rear. Notice the potential angle of death from the other room if Officer Blue were to stay in or too close to the doorway.



Now this is why Officer Blue needed to tuck into the near corner. He was able to kill the threat that would have otherwise killed Officer Green while he was clearing the right side of the room. Now they're ready to move on to the next room. Green will mask as Blue moves across and prepares to enter the next room.



The dynamic duo is lined up and ready to tackle the next room. There's no real advantage for both operators to commit to the room due to the angles and size. Officer Blue can quickly neutralize the top left corner before button hooking into the room itself. All the while Officer Green will maintain rear coverage.



Handled like a boss and ready for the last rooms. This one could be very dangerous due to its size and the very real threat from the adjacent space at the top. To handle this, Officer Green will button hook since he is closest while Officer Blue moves in toward the bottom corner. By doing this, both officers will mask each other on entry thus covering any death from behind. Notice that Officer Blue is set to quickly clear his corner and then reposition to help with any threats from the other side. Also note that Officer Blue does not overcommit toward the middle of the room as that would could be catastrophic in exposing him to two angles from the adjacent space.



Sweet mask bro! Officer Blue succesfully murders the last threat in the level as Officer Green masks and covers the unknown. Had that not been the last suspect, Officer Blue would have continued along his wall, effectively slicing the pie on the last doorway as he works his way up.

Well that does it for the first part of this series. I hope you learned something from it and if you have any questions feel free to shoot me a message and I'd be glad to help. I have never written a Steam guide before so definitely let me know if you think there's something I could do better.

Next time I will be covering 4-officer tactics, advanced room entry, and dealing with large open spaces. See you next time!

LINK TO PART TWO