Operation Flashpoint: Resistance

Resistance is a standalone, separately sold expansion to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis which, unlike ordinary expansion packs, doesn't require ownership of the base game and can be played entirely independently of it. This time the player doesn't take on the role of a NATO soldier in the middle of a large-scale conventional operation, but of Victor Troska, an ordinary inhabitant of the fictional island of Nogova, who joins the resistance after the Soviet invasion and, alongside a handful of fellow fighters, wages a guerrilla war with limited resources against a vastly superior occupying army, with the story told as the character's own recollections describing events yet to unfold.

Compared to the base game, it offers a noticeably different perspective on the same conflict – instead of the coordinated operations of a modern army with tanks and helicopters, Resistance offers improvised combat with captured weapons, fewer vehicles, and a much greater emphasis on survival and stealth in open terrain, all within an extensive campaign of more than twenty missions. It also adds new weapons such as sniper rifles and a silenced pistol, new vehicles, a modified survival mode for holding out longer against waves of enemies, several extra multiplayer maps, and minor technical improvements to the engine, but the main difference lies in the storytelling itself: it follows the war through the eyes of a civilian forced into resistance and improvisation, not a professional soldier with full equipment and air support. The missions are designed so that the player must often retreat, plan ambushes from bushes and forests, and conserve ammunition, giving a very different feel to combat than the straightforward operations of the regular army in the base game.

Why play it: Resistance will appeal to players who enjoy realistic tactical shooters with open maps and want to see the Cold War Crisis conflict from the perspective of a guerrilla resistance with limited resources and improvised tactics, rather than from the perspective of a well-armed regular army with air support and an abundance of hardware.