Enlisted throws you into WWII combat with a whole squad under your control, not just one rifle, and that's exactly where new players get overwhelmed. You'll be switching between AI teammates, managing separate progression for every campaign you play, and deciding how to spend silver before you've even worked out what a good squad looks like. Here's how to spend your first few sessions without wasting the currency and time you can't get back.
Pick One Campaign and Commit to It
Enlisted splits its battles into separate campaigns — the defense of Moscow, the Normandy landings, the desert fighting around Tunisia, and the urban grind of Stalingrad — and each one tracks your squads, soldiers, and tech tree unlocks completely independently. Progress you earn in Normandy doesn't carry over to Moscow. That means spreading yourself across two or three fronts in your first week actively slows you down, since you're rebuilding the same squad structure from zero in each one.
Pick a single campaign based on the playstyle you want: Moscow and Stalingrad lean into tight urban and trench fighting where SMGs and grenades matter more, while Normandy and Tunisia open up into longer sightlines that reward riflemen and machine gunners. Stick with that campaign until you've unlocked a full roster of classes and at least a couple of upgraded squads before touching a second front.
Build Your First Squad Around a Core Class
You start with access to the Rifleman, Sniper, and Tanker classes, and you unlock the rest of Enlisted's roster of soldier classes — including Assaulter, Machine Gunner, Medic, Engineer, Anti-Tank, and Flame Trooper — by progressing through your chosen faction's tech tree. Each squad can hold multiple soldiers, and you'll want to build toward a mixed squad of roughly 5-6 troops rather than stacking duplicates of the same class.
A solid first infantry squad looks like this: one Rifleman or Assaulter as your player-controlled lead, two or three riflemen to round out numbers, a Machine Gunner for suppressing objectives, and a Medic to keep the squad alive through a firefight. Don't sink silver into a Tanker or pilot squad until your infantry squad can reliably hold a point — vehicles are expensive to field and even more expensive to lose early on.
Learn Squad Command Before You Learn Gunplay
The mechanic that separates Enlisted from a standard shooter is that you're never controlling just one soldier. You directly control one member of your squad while the rest follow as AI, and you can issue them orders to attack, defend, or hold a position, or switch control to any living squad member on the fly — including immediately after your current soldier dies. Get comfortable switching characters mid-fight rather than waiting to respawn; if one of your soldiers goes down but a squadmate is still standing near the objective, tapping over to them keeps you in the fight instantly.
Use the attack and defend orders deliberately rather than ignoring them. Setting squadmates to defend a captured point while you push forward with your active soldier lets you hold ground and advance at the same time, which is something a single-life shooter never lets you do.
Spend Silver and Gold With a Plan
Enlisted runs on two currencies. Silver is what you earn from playing matches, and it's what you'll use to buy new weapons, equipment, and vehicles, plus upgrade the gear your existing soldiers carry. Gold is the premium currency bought with real money, and it can be converted into silver or used to buy premium account time and speed up training — it's not required to unlock anything you can't eventually reach through play. Experience, separately, is what unlocks new soldiers, squads, and vehicles on your faction's tech tree in the first place.
Don't burn your early silver on weapon skins or cosmetic upgrades. Put it toward unlocking a Medic and a Machine Gunner for your first squad, then toward upgrading the weapons your Rifleman and Assaulter already carry — better scopes, faster reload parts, and improved magazines make a bigger difference to your win rate than a sixth rifleman.
Level Your Soldiers, Not Just Your Squad
Individual soldiers level up independently of your squad's overall size, capping out at five stars, and each star gained unlocks a perk point you can spend on that soldier specifically — things like extra ammo capacity or faster reloads. Focus these perk points on your player-controlled soldier first, since that's the one whose survivability affects every match directly, then work outward to the Medic and Machine Gunner who anchor your squad's staying power.
Use Practice Mode Before Every New Vehicle or Weapon
Before you queue into a real match with a new tank, plane, or unfamiliar weapon, spend five minutes in Practice mode. It's a no-pressure space to test handling, aim, and controls for vehicles and guns you haven't used yet, and it's the fastest way to avoid losing your first tank to a control mix-up rather than actual enemy fire. New tankers especially should practice traversing turrets and aiming here — the learning curve on armor is steep, and Practice mode is free.