Rethinking Squad Management — Custom Companies, Historical Templates, and More Player Freedom
Greetings again fellow forum dwellers,
I’ve been thinking a lot about squad management and how it could be expanded or reworked into something much more flexible, immersive (sorry, Skyrim modding has ruined the word for me), and rewarding for players who care about historical accuracy, customization and self-expression.
Right now, we unlock specific squads, like the German Sniper I squad “8th Recon Battalion” of the 8th Infantry Division, and really that’s pretty much it. But what if, instead of just unlocking a single, fixed squad, we were unlocking a squad template and its associated division name, emblem, and related cosmetics?
Hear me out…
Why I’m So Invested In This
Part of why I’m so attached to this idea is because Enlisted already has something great and altogether unique in its current system. The squad management of this game is a great selling point, which seperates Enlisted from being “just another WW2 shooter”. The historical connections, the squad emblems, the division references, the short texts of their history, it all adds a thin layer of personality and detail that I really appreciate. It makes the game more than just a shooter, it makes it a place where you can feel like you are equally the commander commanding of a real combat unit and a soldier on the frontline.
But I also keep thinking: this could be so much better.
I want to take this core principal of the game and push it further. I’d like us to have the ability to build something of our own within the framework of the game. Something flexible, immersive, and deeply personal. That’s what this suggestion is all about.
The Core Idea: Squad Templates and Division Identity
Imagine a system where:
- Unlocking a squad gives you access to a template (e.g. Sniper I, EngineerII, MG III, AT I, etc.)
- That template includes a specific historical division or battalion, complete with its name, emblem, and visual identity, as well as the default squad you already unlock
- You can then use that template to create custom squads, choosing the nationality and division identity from the ones you’ve unlocked
- Squad cosmetics (uniforms, gear, patches* (one day, a man can dream), etc.) would be available across all your squads with the same nationality once unlocked
What This System Would Enable
Solve the nationality gap
There aren’t enough squads to fully represent every nationality across every squad type. With this system, if you’ve unlocked a sniper squad from the US and an mortar squad from Britain, you could create a British sniper squad or a US mortar squad, using the appropriate templates.
Faster, more flexible squad progression
If squad templates were tied to the original squad unlock, you could grind XP for that squad more effectively by running multiple versions of it. Right now, you’re stuck waiting for three squad rotations and just hoping you perform well during the brief window when that specific squad is active.
This change would make the grind far less tedious, especially for squads late in the tech tree, where the XP requirements are massive. It’s a simple way to reward players for investing time into specific squads, without affecting overall balance.
Fully utilize Event and Premium squads
Unique cosmetics, like the green sniper helmets from Germany or the armoured vests from the recent Japanese motorcycle squad, would become available for purchase across all squads of the same nationality and appropriate campaign. This would finally give more practical value to these exclusive squads beyond just collecting dust in your reserve tab.
Lord knows I’ll probably never use a motorcycle squad in the game’s current state, but if purchasing it meant I could outfit the rest of my Japanese troops with those cool vests? Suddenly, that purchase starts to look a lot more appealing.
Just imagine kitting out every British squad with slouch hats. That’s the kind of style upgrade worth grinding for.
Build full historical divisions (or cool what-if ones)
Players could finally recreate full combat divisions from real history—or mix divisions that historically operated together in certain battles. Want a full Guards Armoured Division lineup? Or a mixed US-British force from Operation Market Garden? You could do that.
Custom Companies = Player Identity
This would give players the tools to build a full company that feels like theirs. Every soldier would belong to a structure that you define: your own combat company with a distinct theme, history, and aesthetic. You’d be hand-picking and equipping each soldier, and shifting them between squads would finally make sense (why were the British and Americans sending individual people back and forth between each other to begin with).
More player agency = more fun
This opens up huge roleplay and personalization potential without breaking balance or the grind, because you’re still limited by what you’ve unlocked. But it’s you deciding how to use what you’ve earned.
Addressing Game Balance Concerns
A system like this might raise questions about players “cheesing” by rotating through multiple squads of the same type (MG squads, assaulters, etc.) to get around cooldowns or maximize spam. But the truth is: that’s not just already possible from the current tech-tree, it’s already happening.
You only need three squads of the same type to effectively cycle, and nothing in this system would change that. And for vehicles, you’d still only own one copy of a given vehicle, which can only be assigned to one squad at a time. So nothing would change on that front, people who are cheesing now will still be able to do it, just as they always could.
Final Thought
This wouldn’t just be a quality-of-life improvement, it would be a fundamental reimagining of squad management in Enlisted. A system that honors those historical details the game already flirt with, while giving players the freedom to build, customize, and connect with their squads in a much deeper way.
Let us make companies that reflect our interests, our historical knowledge, or even just our aesthetic preferences. Give us the tools, and we’ll build something meaningful with them.
Would love to hear what others think, what would you want out of a system like this? What kind of company would you build?