It's a third person 4 person squad based shooter wherein you're dropped onto randomly generated maps and must complete a main objective, with random secondaries and extra collectibles placed around.

You can bring a limited load out of "stratagems" that you can call down during the mission, which can be anything from dropping explosive ordinance to dropping secondary weapons or defensive turrets.

You complete the missions to gain experience and different currencies used to unlock more stratagems and equipment, with more options unlocking as you hit certain level thresholds.

The shooting model is interesting in which projectiles are aimed based off where the actual gun of your character model is pointing, so where the game is fun and chaotic at easier difficulty levels, precision, strategy, and loadout choice become increasingly important as you go higher in difficulty levels, giving it a range from "blow a bunch of shit up with your buddies" to "complete objectives and extract by the skin of your teeth through extremely tight and considered tactical play".

Friendly fire is a huge deal in this game, you can crush yourself or friends with drops, easily accidentally kill each other with your guns or with turrets trying to shoot past you at enemies, it can be hilarious, but also puts major importance on lines of sight and caution.

You can unlock certain loadout options through a sort of battle pass in which you spend points acquired in gameplay to unlock equipment in tiers, with the next tier becoming available after spending a certain amount in the overall pass. $40 USD for base game, another $20 for a second battle pass track that has alternate loadout options. Most of the really good unlocks are in the free pass, though, and after about 45 hours I've earned enough currency through gameplay to unlock the premium pass without paying real money.

That being said, that only unlocks the pass, unlocking the equipment within it requires in-game currency, so I wouldn't say it's pay to win since you still have to put in the legwork yourself, and getting the pass without paying extra is more than doable, compared to the first game which had a ton of DLC that could only be bought and instantly unlocked.

Personally, I really enjoy it, the game looks great, plays great, it can be as infuriatingly difficult as you make it through difficulty choice, but it's a great time with some friends, or even with randoms.