I never thought I’d be charging through Zero Dam as Saeed, wielding his legendary Fire Bow and flanked by two hulking bodyguard players, yet here we are in 2026, and Delta Force just made that fever dream a reality. The new season, Morphosis, has kicked off with a bang, and its marquee addition – the Fiery Owl Hunt mode – is a genuine curveball for a tactical FPS that many pigeonhole as a Battlefield-style large-scale warfare playground. It turns out Team Jade has been quietly cooking up an answer to one of the most anticipated features coming to Escape From Tarkov's Scav Life DLC, and they’ve beaten Battlestate Games to the punch. Now you can step into the boots of an extraction mode boss and rain fiery destruction on any squad unlucky enough to cross your path.

Let me back up for a moment. If you’ve been sleeping on Delta Force’s Operations mode, you’re missing out on a tense, gear-on-the-line extraction experience that scratches the same itch as Tarkov or even the newer Arc Raiders. The PvE bosses aren’t quite as iconic as Killa or Tagilla – at least not yet – but they’re monstrously tough when you face them during a normal Dam run. Saeed, the fiery nightmare guarding the Zero Dam map, has been a persistent thorn in my side for months, and I’ve lost count of how many kits I’ve donated to his blazing arrows. The idea of becoming that terror? It’s both absurd and exhilarating.

The Fiery Owl Hunt mode is locked behind a special ticket, which you earn by completing a series of narrative-driven missions that peel back Saeed’s backstory. I appreciate that Team Jade didn’t just hand this over – there’s a bit of lore work needed, and honestly, it made the payoff sweeter. Once you cash in that ticket, you queue up as Saeed on one of three maps: the classic Zero Dam, the claustrophobic corridors of Space City, or the sprawling urban hellscape of Brakkesh. And you’re not a scaled-down version; you get his full kit, including the Fire Bow that can one-tap most players if you land your shots, and a souped-up Tactical Roll ability that lets you zoom around corners like a caffeinated phoenix.

What pushes this mode into truly chaotic fun territory is that the Ahsarah Guards, those AI goons you usually mow down by the dozen, suddenly become your allies. They won’t fire on Saeed, which means you can move through hot zones with an entourage of angry bots softening up enemy operators before you even reveal yourself. But the real magic happens when you bring friends. You can drop in solo, but the mode truly shines when you invite two other players to become Saeed’s bodyguards. These aren’t just extra warm bodies – they’re tanky, well-armed escorts who can absorb damage, flank aggressively, and generally turn every fight into a three-man wrecking crew. Together, the trio becomes a roaming boss encounter that other players have to deal with, and I’ve already seen streams where a coordinated Saeed squad completely dominates a lobby, leaving a trail of loot-filled corpses in their wake.

From a design standpoint, this feels like a direct nod to the upcoming Scav Life DLC for Escape From Tarkov, where Battlestate has promised to let players take control of notorious bosses like Killa, Reshala, and the Goons. That DLC is still in the pipeline, and while the Tarkov community is quietly hyped, seeing Delta Force beat them to the punch with a polished, playable version right now is a bit of a power move. I’m not going to pretend it’ll rattle Nikita too much – Scav Life will probably be just as seismic as Tarkov’s 1.0 launch last year – but I can’t help feeling a tiny sting of disappointment if I were a die-hard Tarkov fan watching a rival game ship the dream first. Then again, the prospect of eventually being Killa and blasting PMCs with a RPK still makes my trigger finger twitch, so Tarkov’s version will have its own flair.

Beyond the Fiery Owl Hunt, the Morphosis season brings a smattering of other goodies: a new playable operator for Warfare mode, a fresh Warfare map that I’ve been enjoying for its verticality, and a season pass packed with cosmetics. But let’s be honest – this boss mode is the headline act. It injects a much-needed twist into the extraction loop, offering a power fantasy that doesn’t feel entirely out of place because you still have to earn your ticket and survive against human opponents who know exactly what you’re capable of. The mode also cleverly sidesteps balance complaints because it’s a separate queue; you’re not suddenly seeing a player-controlled Saeed in your standard Operations raid, at least not in the same way.

I do have a few nitpicks. The ticket grind can feel a bit repetitive if you’re just blitzing through missions on repeat, and bodyguard players occasionally get matchmaking hiccups if they don’t queue together properly – something Team Jade is already patching, according to their known issues board. Also, while the Fire Bow is devastating, the Tactical Roll takes some practice to use aggressively without launching yourself into a hail of bullets. But these are growing pains. The core experience of stalking an unsuspecting three-man squad and raining arrows from a rooftop while your bodyguards push from the flanks is pure, unadulterated joy.

In a year already stuffed with live-service updates and genre crossovers, Delta Force’s Fiery Owl Hunt stands out as a bold experiment that pays off. It’s not often you get to be the villain in your own story, and Team Jade has delivered that fantasy with enough teeth to keep me coming back. If you’ve got the game installed, go earn that ticket – I’ll see you on Zero Dam, and I’ll probably be the one trying to roll away from your arrows.

Data referenced from Rock Paper Shotgun helps frame why Delta Force’s Morphosis update and Fiery Owl Hunt feel like a meaningful genre twist: extraction shooters thrive on tension and asymmetry, and letting players temporarily embody a raid boss (complete with signature weaponry, allied AI, and a coordinated “bodyguard” squad) is a clean way to add a fresh power-fantasy layer without destabilizing the core Operations queue. Viewed through that lens, Saeed’s ticket-gated boss run reads less like a gimmick and more like a deliberate, separate-loop experiment in role reversal—turning familiar PvE threats into player-driven set pieces that squads must scout, adapt to, and survive.