Before every Horde Siege mission each player picks a class. A class is defined by four things: a starting loadout, a combat bonus, an unlock progression track and a piece of Tactical Gear, which is a powerful item on a timed cooldown. Four classes ship at launch, with more planned in seasonal updates.
Classes are cosmetically independent. Any class can be combined with any character skin, so the class you play does not constrain the character you play as.
Launch Classes
Class | Loadout focus | Tactical Gear | Combat bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
Assault | Midrange weapons and flexibility across situations | Sonic Disruptor, which stuns waves of incoming enemies and is particularly useful when defending an objective | Damage boost while in cover |
Breacher | Close-range damage, built to push into the frontline | Adrenaline Injector, which refills health and reduces damage taken, allowing a rush into high-risk areas | Improved resistance to status effects and to melee damage |
Marksman | Precision damage over the mode's longer sightlines | Pulse Drone, which tags Locust units for the whole squad | Improved damage on critical hits |
Medic | Mid-range revive specialist that can still hold its own in a fight | Stim Vaporizer, which heals and revives any Gear in range, including downed soldiers from other squads | Faster health regeneration |
Squad Composition
The classes are designed to complement one another, but the studio has said outright that there is no correct way to build a squad. Four Breachers is a legitimate choice. Mixing and matching between missions is encouraged rather than punished, which fits a mode where the objective type, difficulty and modifiers change every match.
The Medic is worth noting for cross-squad play: its Stim Vaporizer reaches downed soldiers from the other two squads on the map, not only its own. That folds into the wider revive system, where any player can carry another player's COG tags to a Supply Cache.
Class Progression
Completing a mission earns Class Experience, which advances that class's level. Each class carries 30 levels of progression at launch. Levelling unlocks new loadout weapons and equipment, Armor Mods, Tactical Gear Mods and Weapon Mods, and at key milestones the class receives base health and damage increases.
Unlocked by levelling | Detail |
|---|---|
Loadout weapons and equipment | New options available at the start of a mission and at Supply Caches |
Armor Mods | Adjust health, ammunition reserves and weapon swap speed, and can add effects such as gaining perfect active ammunition from executions |
Tactical Gear Mods | Reduce the cooldown on the class's unique equipment, increase its range and add extra effects |
Weapon Mods | Unlocked on the class track, then bought with Weapon Parts before they can be equipped. Covered on Mods and Customization |
Milestone bonuses | Base health and damage increases at set levels |
Class level also gates difficulty. Mission difficulty tiers are recommended by class level, running from Rookie at levels 1 to 10 up to Allfather for max level classes only. The full tier table is on the mode page.
Customisation Carries Across Classes
Weapon customisation in this mode is shared. Modifying a Prototype Lancer while playing Assault means those same mods and cosmetics apply whenever any other class equips a Prototype Lancer. That removes the usual per-class re-grind and is one reason Weapon Parts, rather than class level alone, are the real bottleneck on a build.
What Is Not Confirmed
The per-class unlock tables have not been published, so the specific weapon, mod and equipment unlocks at each of the 30 levels are unknown. Post-launch classes are confirmed to be coming but none has been named. Individual class pages will only be worth creating once that data exists; until then the material lives here and on Progression and Medals.