Squad Is Coming to Console, and You Can Play the PS5 Alpha Free Right Now

Squad is finally leaving PC. On Thursday, Offworld Industries and publisher Secret Mode announced that the 100-player shooter is heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S in 2027. And instead of making console players wait a year to see whether the thing actually works on a controller, they opened a free PS5 technical alpha the very next day.

That alpha went live Friday, October 16, and runs through Sunday, October 25. It's open to anyone with a PS5, but you do have to enlist first at alpha.joinsquad.com, which hands you off to the PlayStation Store to add the build to your library. If you can't find it on your console, Offworld posted a quick walkthrough of the steps on X.

Squad console announcement art. Image: Offworld Industries via joinsquad.com.

What's actually in the alpha

It's a small slice, and Offworld is upfront about that. You run through Infantry Training and Pilot Training, then drop into an Invasion skirmish on Gorodok, with the Armed Forces of Ukraine fighting the People's Liberation Army over the rail line that cuts through the map. The PlayStation Store listing calls it "a tiny portion of the full game experience," which is fair. This is a stress test for servers, performance and the new control scheme, not a demo of the finished product. Xbox players aren't included this time, and the studio says a beta may come later.

PC players get something too. Every Steam owner can claim the Recon Team Pack for free until October 25. It's five woodland weapon skins for the USMC, covering the M16A4, M27 and M38 rifles, the M39, the M249 and M240B, two pistols, and the M32 and M320 launchers.

What console Squad looks like at launch

The announcement FAQ is unusually detailed for a reveal this early. Here's the launch lineup Offworld has committed to:

	Console launch
Modes	AAS, RAAS, Invasion, Fireteam
Maps	Al Basrah, Fallujah, Mutaha, Narva, Yehorivka, Gorodok
Factions	US Army, USMC, PLA, AFU, PMC, MEI, RGF, BAF
Player count	Up to 100 in PvP, 5 in Fireteam PvE
Performance targets	4K/60 on PS5 and Series X, 1440p/30 on Series S

A few other answers matter if you already play on PC. There's no cross-progression, your PC copy doesn't get you a console copy, and DLC and cosmetics stay on the platform you bought them on. Console gets aim assist, and outlets like Pixels in Orbit note there's no mouse and keyboard support. Offworld says gunplay is otherwise unchanged. Mods won't be on console at launch either.

Crossplay is the part worth reading twice. PC keeps its community-hosted servers. Console gets official platform servers, official crossplay servers between PlayStation and Xbox, and its own community servers. PC players can set up community servers that run the console ruleset, and those live in a separate section of the PC browser, so mixing with console players is something you choose rather than something that happens to you.

Offworld's pitch to the PC crowd is that console money funds the whole game. The studio says it has more developers on Squad "than we have had for a long time," and it's calling the plan One Squad, with major updates shipping on the same day across platforms once console launches. Or as the FAQ puts it: "PC remains a fundamental part of that future. Console expands it."

How the first day went

Early reactions under Offworld's alpha launch post are about what you'd expect from a day-one tech test. Some people are just having fun. "Played a little and it's pretty fun, hope the player count stays high tho," wrote @lilautisticcat. Others hit walls fast. @AbiSalama couldn't get into a server and called the control scheme "a mess," while @BenitoStalin and @furleys_ascot were both stuck on the same complaint: no option to invert look. Motion blur, a bugged LMG in training, and the tutorial voice acting also caught some flak.

The most Squad complaint of all came from @FaTal_ToAsT_, who ran into a few bugs but said "no one knows how to build fobs or rally points." @razgriz_07 was "having a blast" but noticed nobody bothers to revive. That's the real challenge here. The FAQ says the goal is to make Squad "easier to learn, not simpler to master," and a hundred brand-new players who've never placed a rally point are going to test that harder than any server load will.

Not everyone's sold, but there's real appetite. "We need more milsims on consoles," wrote @11122X, who's planning to put heavy hours in once they're home this weekend.

Why it's worth a look now

If you've been curious about Squad but never had the PC for it, this is the cheapest way you'll ever get to try it: free, on hardware you already own, with more than a week left in the window. Go in with a mic if you have one. Squad without comms is a lonely game, and right now most of the server is learning it at the same time you are.

If the alpha hooks you and you want to see how the game plays with an organized group, Squad units on PC are already recruiting on Milsim Units.