In a traditional Delta Force Operations game, the casting is usually fixed: you play as an Operator, sneaking solo or in groups into a high-risk map to scavenge for supplies while trying to survive against powerful AI Bosses and real players. But for the new season of Delta Force, Team Jade decided to tear that script to shreds. 

It all started with a whim: “If the player is no longer the careful intruder, but the Boss that strikes fear into everyone else, what does that experience look like?” This core concept drives the new experience, Fiery Owl Hunt. As a free-to-play shooter on Xbox Series X|S, Delta Force has eschewed a traditional update path for its latest season, Morphosis, choosing instead to execute a bold reversal of identity.

“We really want to give the extraction gameplay some fresh air, and instead of letting players loop in the same rules, why not break it?” says Ricky, Game Design Director from Team Jade. He points out that usually in extraction mode, players are constantly facing survival pressures. “But in Fiery Owl Hunt, we make the perspective shift the core — you are not the challenger anymore, you become the challenge itself.” I sat down with key developers behind this mode to dig into the design philosophy behind this shift.

Flipping the Perspective: From Villain to Protagonist

The team selected Saeed—a warlord known for his agility and aggression—as the centerpiece for this mode. It wasn’t a random choice, but rather a natural extension of the game’s evolving narrative. Ricky explains that while Saeed is one of the first bosses players meet, usually viewing him as merely a target, the new season renders his image more “3D” and complex. “Players start to understand him now with recent season story progressions. He is fighting against Haavk and G.T.I. not just to be bad, but to get resources for his people to survive,” Ricky told me. “This logic — fighting for resources and survival — is actually very well matched with the player’s goal in extraction mode.”

Ricky adds that this mode serves as an important exploration for their storytelling, hoping to expand the world setting in a more immersive way by dismantling the binary ‘Operator vs. Enemy’ setup. “When you really stand in Saeed’s perspective, the plot is not just background setting anymore — it becomes the motivation behind every time you pull the trigger.” To support this gameplay, the team ensured it wasn’t just a limited-time distraction but a fully fleshed-out system. “Fiery Owl Hunt has its own progression and reward system,” Ricky notes. “Players can finish tasks from the Boss perspective to unlock exclusive rewards and narrative bits, including a very cool-looking melee weapon that you can upgrade with new looks and inspections.”

Designing the Mechanics: Restoring the “Boss Feel”

When allowing players to commandeer a Boss character, the technical difficulty lies in preserving that oppressive “Boss presence.” Operator Designer Brant believes the key lies in the differentiation of experience, noting that simply giving a normal operator a larger health pool would be “lazy.” “He must keep the things that make players remember him,” Brant says. In the actual game, players controlling Saeed will wield his signature Fire Bow and possess a Tactical Roll ability that is far more flexible than that of standard operators. Moreover, it isn’t a solo act; the mode allows players to form a “Boss Squad” where friends can play as his elite guards, recreating that authentic squad-based pressure.

To make the identity shift feel even more tangible, the team introduced a special passive mechanic: the AI Ahsarah Guards on the map will no longer attack the player-controlled Saeed squad. Instead, they become your allies. “They will actually help you,” Brant explains. “They even provide intel on where hostile players are. This design aims to further reinforce the role-playing aspect. By utilizing the contrast of the ‘friend or foe’ reversal, we want players to truly feel the change in their character’s identity.”

The Wild Card Effect

Introducing a human-controlled Boss brings unexpected changes to every game. As Level Designer Seth notes, they didn’t need to rebuild the maps because the “human” factor is the biggest variable. “AI Boss behavior, you can usually guess it after some time. But real players? You cannot predict them,” Seth chuckles. “This makes the flow and dynamics of every match completely different.” In his view, Saeed acts like a “moving hot zone” on the map. Because defeating the Saeed squad yields an exclusive loot box, the combat-focused players — those seeking high risks and high rewards — will naturally gravitate toward Saeed.

Interestingly, this mechanic also creates a fascinating balance in the ecosystem for stealthier players, or “rat players” as the community affectionately calls them. “It is actually an ecosystem balance,” Seth points out. “When the teams with heaviest firepower are attracted by Saeed and fighting in one area, it creates a ‘vacuum’ in other parts of the map. This gives the players who don’t want to fight head-on — who just want to focus on looting — a safer window to operate.” Whether you choose to become the Boss and fight head-on, or use the ensuing chaos to loot quietly on the periphery, Fiery Owl Hunt introduces deeper strategic variables to the extraction formula.

Delta Force is now available for free on Xbox Series X|S. The Fiery Owl Hunt event is live as part of Season Morphosis. Players can unlock the new Support Operator, Vlinder, for free, experience the new Warfare map Aftershock, featuring full-scene destruction, and explore the expanded Space City. A host of other improvements, such as in-game vehicle customization and a Normal difficulty for Tide Prison, have also been implemented.