Horde Siege

How a match works

Horde Siege is E-Day's take on Horde. Twelve players drop into one large map as three squads of four. Each squad has its own mission, but you share the battlefield, cross paths with the other squads, and sometimes fight the same boss. When your objectives are done, you clear a landing zone and hold it until the Raven arrives.

1. Pick a class.
2. Pick a playlist and a difficulty.
3. Complete your squad's main objectives, and take on side tasks when you can.
4. Spend Energy on gear, perks and turrets as you go.
5. Extract. Only one squad member has to make it onto the Raven for the mission to count.

The game can drop you into a battle that's already running, and squads that extracted earlier can leave turrets and gear behind for you to use.

How the mode works comes from The Coalition's multiplayer deep dive, July 30 ↗. Numbers that were retuned after the beta come from the release notes (see what changed since the beta). Anything marked "our advice" is ours. The game has been out since October 6; we have not re-measured these figures in the shipped build.

The four classes

Each class has its own starting loadout, a passive bonus, a level track and a piece of Tactical Gear on a cooldown. Class and character skin are separate, so any character can play any class. More classes come in seasonal updates.

There's no required line-up. Four Breachers is allowed. Our advice: a Medic and a Marksman make harder difficulties more forgiving, because revives and marked targets help everyone in the squad.

Playlists and difficulty

Difficulty scales with your class level. The game suggests one, but your squad chooses. Higher difficulties pay better rewards.

Objectives

Most missions revolve around R.I.G.s, mining scanners the COG is using to map the Locust tunnels under Kalona. There are five objective types at launch:

• Secure: push the Locust out of an area.
• Calibrate: hold a series of zones near a R.I.G. while it calibrates.
• Repair: collect scattered R.I.G. parts and put them back.
• Defend: keep an active R.I.G. alive until it finishes mapping.
• Horde: survive 10 waves attacking a single R.I.G.

Secondary objectives

Optional side tasks along the way: defuse Locust explosives, take out a high-value target, grab COG intel, or carry a Power Core to another squad's R.I.G. They pay out Weapon Parts, free equipment and Squad Perks.

Energy, Supply Caches and turrets

Kills and objectives fill a shared Energy pool, but each player spends it on their own. At the Supply Caches around the map you can buy equipment and grenades (they share one inventory slot), buy a new weapon mid-fight, or upgrade Squad Perks. What's on offer depends on your class and how far you've leveled it.

Energy also buys and upgrades turrets at set defensive spots. Turrets can be ripped off their mounts and carried as heavy weapons.

Squad Perks are buffs for the whole squad that last until the end of the mission.

Modifiers, Poisons and Invasion Events

• Mission Modifiers depend on difficulty. Examples include health that only regenerates in cover, only Perfect Active Reloads, and enemies that explode when they die.
• Poisons make the Locust tougher and hit harder each time your squad clears a boss wave. They only affect the enemies your squad faces.
• Invasion Events bring in a big boss, like a Corpser or a Brumak, with its own escort. Every squad on the map is warned, and while it's alive a map-wide penalty applies, such as blocked extraction or disabled Supply Caches. Every squad that helps gets a share of the reward.

Our advice: side objectives are best done before a boss wave, while the enemies you're facing are still at their weakest.

COG Resupplies

• Supply Drops: free equipment and modded weapons for anyone who grabs them.
• Perk Caches: three Squad Perks, and the best one goes to the squad that reaches it first.
• Weapon Part Stockpiles: only pay out if squads work together.

All three attract Locust, so expect a fight.

Dying, reviving and squad lives

• When you die you drop your COG tags. A squadmate can carry them to a Supply Cache to bring you back.
• A player from another squad who picks up your tags revives you on the spot.
• If your whole squad goes down, you lose a Squad Life. Lose them all and the mission fails; you keep partial XP.
• The Raven won't wait. Miss the extraction window and you lose your ride.

Leveling your class

Each class has 30 levels at launch. Leveling unlocks loadout weapons and equipment, Armor Mods (health, ammo, swap speed and similar), Tactical Gear Mods (shorter cooldowns, more range, added effects) and Weapon Mods. At certain levels your class also gets a boost to base health and damage.

Unlocked Weapon Mods still have to be bought with Weapon Parts. You earn some parts by leveling, but most come from missions, and you only keep the parts from a mission if your squad extracts. Weapon customization is shared across classes, so mods you put on a Prototype Lancer carry over to any class that uses one.

Maps

Three Horde Siege maps at launch, each covering several city blocks of Kalona. Golden Quarter, the historic district from the beta, is one of them. The other two have not been named in anything official we have found. The October 5 patch notes mention a Plaza Ruins Blitz mission, but they do not say whether Plaza Ruins is a map or a mission on one. More maps, classes, objective types and modifiers are planned after launch.

What changed since the beta

The Coalition retuned Horde Siege after the August beta. The release notes do not give the new numbers, only the direction:

• Harder: all Invasion Events, and the Commander and Allfather difficulties.
• Less generous: Weapon Part rewards for taking part in Invasions and for Weapon Part Stockpiles were reduced. Equipment costs more, some Squad Perks are weaker and Squad Perks cost more Energy.
• Adjusted: the difficulty of Repair objectives, the Medic's stim duration, and the health a Boomer, Flayer or Grinder must be down to before a Prototype Lancer can execute it (it was lowered).
• Fixed: objectives that would not complete or start, Tickers not flying when kicked, blast charges in the Corpser Invasion Event not counting, spectating squadmates after you are tagged, Lobby and Barracks errors, and Tickers being immune to Gorehooks.
• October 5: Siege Blitz Secure objectives that could not be completed, and a Plaza Ruins Blitz mission where the extraction helicopter might not appear.
• Player XP was adjusted so progress feels similar in Horde Siege and Versus.

Sources: The Coalition's release notes, September 30 ↗ and the October 5 patch notes ↗.