Everyone has thought to themselves at least once: “What if there were night battles in Enlisted?”
While it sounds like the most immersive concept possible, the reason we don’t have it in standard matchmaking comes down to balance constraints and player behavior.
What went wrong in the original Event?
Operation Market Garden was historically a nighttime and dawn operation—because jumping out of a plane under the cover of darkness is infinitely smarter than doing it under the bright sun. Having the event set during broad daylight was a critical design flaw. Axis players could easily spawn-camp and farm defenseless Allied paratroopers and aircraft, leaving the attackers with zero tactical options to defend themselves.
To fix this, I propose a fully reworked, phase-based night operation framework based on the Market Garden event:
AXIS (Defenders)
- The Countdown (First 20 Seconds): The match begins in pitch darkness. Axis players have 20 seconds of tense preparation before the Allies arrive.
- The Alarms (T-Minus 10 Seconds): Air raid sirens begin to wail as the Allied transport fleet approaches.
- The Searchlights (T-Minus 5 Seconds): Automatic Carbon-Arc Searchlights light up the sky. Only at this exact millisecond do the red enemy plane icons appear on the HUD to signal where the Axis should look. Simultaneously, the announcer/narrator warns of an impending “air raid,” ensuring less experienced players drop their guard and focus on the sky.
- Air Support: A dedicated pool of Fighter and Attacker aircraft will be available for the Axis to intercept Allied transports and protect ground assets.
- Logistics & Engineering: Axis Engineers will have the unique capability to rebuild/repair destroyed searchlights using their hammers. Additionally, they can construct Flare Mortars to provide temporary illumination over key sectors.
ALLIED (Attackers)
- The Infiltration: The map is covered in thick clouds and heavy low-altitude fog. Allied players spawn inside the C-47 cabins in first-person view, listening to the announcer explaining the operational objectives while the plane cuts through the dark weather.
- The Jump (At 20 Seconds): Paratroopers get the green light to jump precisely when the Axis searchlights activate, creating an immediate, high-stakes tactical engagement.
- Air Support: Active Fighter and Attacker slots will be open for the Allies. Their primary role is to suppress Axis AA weaponry and shoot down the searchlights to plunge the battlefield back into darkness.
- The Ground Phase: The very first units to touch the soil will receive a “Secondary Objective” on their screen: Destroy the Searchlights. This can be accomplished with standard small arms fire or precision sniper shots, blinding the Axis AA and creating a safe corridor for subsequent waves of paratrooper drops.
Core Mechanics & Illumination Separation
To prevent toxic player behavior (such as blinding teammates or trolling with handheld items), illumination is strictly separated by altitude layers and engineering structures:
- Searchlights (High-Altitude Layer): Mounted on top of specific bunkers and strategic buildings. They are automated, completely static, and dedicated solely to tracking aircraft and falling paratroopers. They can be destroyed by gunfire and rebuilt by Axis Engineers.
- Flares (Low-Altitude Layer): Dispatched via fixed, engineer-built mortar tubes. They explode at low altitudes to illuminate the trenches and streets, ensuring intense, balanced infantry firefights under the cover of night.
Economic Incentives & Score System (Preventing Brainless Deathmatches)
To motivate the player base to actually play the objective instead of just treating the night as a brainless, dark deathmatch, the game must reward utility and engineering actions heavily with Score and Silver Coins:
- For the Allies: Successfully destroying an active Axis Searchlight should grant the player +100 Objective Points (equivalent to a tank kill score) and a “Light Out” tactical medal, translating directly into extra Silver post-match. This heavily incentivizes infantry and pilots to shoot the lights rather than farming bots in the dark.
- For the Axis: Building a Flare Mortar, repairing a broken Searchlight, or tracking an enemy aircraft within a searchlight beam should grant engineers passive “Tactical Support” assist points (+25 per assist). If an AA gun or a teammate kills a paratrooper illuminated by your light/flare, the Engineer who maintained that light gets an immediate Illumination Assist reward.