RUNNING WITH RIFLES: Complete Guide

A practical guide to RUNNING WITH RIFLES (RWR): how ranks, XP and RP work, what to carry, how to survive the AI, how to lead a squad, and how the online Invasion servers and seasonal events fit in.

Researched September 2026 — current as of the Summer 2026 event build. Osumia Games' core team is building RWR 2 (store page live since March 2026), and a new vanilla DLC codenamed RUNNING WITH RIFLES: EXTENDED was targeted for around Q3 2026. Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

You are one soldier in a war, not the hero. The front line is dozens of AI soldiers on each side. Stay near friendlies, use cover, and let the battle carry you until you have rank and gear.
Two currencies: XP and RP. XP (experience) raises your rank and is lost in chunks for teamkills. RP (resource points) is money you spend on weapons, grenades, vests, and radio calls at the armory.
Rank decides what you can do. Higher ranks let you command more AI squadmates and unlock more expensive radio calls and equipment. Early on you are a Private with nothing to command.
Always carry a medikit. Downed soldiers bleed out after a short timer; healing a wounded teammate is fast and rewards good XP.
Crouch and go prone. Accuracy and survival both improve dramatically when you are low and in cover. Sprinting in the open is how most new players die.
Get a vest early. Body armor absorbs several hits before breaking and is the single best survival purchase.
Loot and deliver. Enemy weapons and rare items can be picked up. Stash them in your backpack and drop them in the armory or stash to sell or keep.
Ignore the commander when it makes sense. Commander orders are suggestions. Flanking an undefended base or sabotaging assets behind the line is often worth more than joining the main push.
Try online Invasion. The official vanilla Invasion servers run a persistent campaign with players and AI on the same side, and they host the seasonal events.

Factions and Setting

The base game has three factions fighting across a chain of maps:

Faction	Standard rifle
Greenbelts	M16A4
Graycollars	G36
Brownpants	AK-47

Each faction has its own standard arsenal with roughly equivalent roles (assault rifle, LMG, sniper, shotgun, SMG, launcher). Rare weapons and faction-specific gear show up as loot.

DLCs add World War II settings with their own factions, maps, and vehicles:

DLC	Setting
RUNNING WITH RIFLES: PACIFIC (Oct 2017)	U.S. Marines vs. the Imperial Japanese Army, with island landings, landing craft, and bayonets
RUNNING WITH RIFLES: EDELWEISS (Sep 2018)	British and American airborne operations in 1944 Western Europe vs. the Wehrmacht
EASTERN FRONT (in development)	Not yet released; the DLC team added a small teaser of its content to the WW2 Undead mode in late 2025

Core Systems

XP, Ranks, and Squads

You earn XP for kills, captures, healing and reviving teammates, destroying objectives, and completing side tasks. Teamkills cost XP. As XP grows you are promoted, and each rank:

Increases the number of AI soldiers you can recruit into your squad
Unlocks more expensive items and radio calls
Changes what the armory offers you

Early ranks go fast. Corporal is roughly where you start comfortably affording and fielding armor; officer ranks are where you start fielding full squads and heavier support.

RP and the Armory

RP buys equipment at the armory in your base. Basic rifles and grenades cost very little. Specialized kit (stationary weapons, big radio calls, flares) costs a lot. You also gain RP by:

Selling looted weapons and items
Completing objectives and captures
Stealing enemy cargo trucks and bringing them home

Rare drops (unusual weapons and event items) sell for a large amount of RP, so if you find something valuable, getting it back to base alive matters more than the next kill.

Backpack and Stash

Backpack: carries spare items with you. Keep a second vest and extra medikits here.
Stash: a persistent storage for your character. Store rare weapons you want to keep for later instead of selling them.

Wounding, Healing, and Death

Soldiers who take a lethal hit are often downed first rather than killed outright. A downed soldier has a limited time before bleeding out. Anyone with a medikit can heal them in a few seconds. Healing human players first is good etiquette online. If you are downed and nobody is coming, you can give up and respawn rather than waiting out the timer (check the key bindings in the options menu).

Radio Calls

Ranking up unlocks radio calls you pay for with RP:

Paratroopers: reinforcements dropped on your position
Artillery and mortar strikes: area bombardment; mind friendly troops
Supply drops such as sandbag cover
Vehicle and equipment drops at higher ranks

Radio calls are the biggest force multiplier in the game. Save RP for them when a base is heavily defended rather than trickling in one rifle at a time.

Weapons: What to Use

Category	Examples	Best use
Assault rifles	M16A4, G36, AK-47	All-round default; cheap and reliable
Light machine guns	M240, IMI Negev, PKM	Suppression; must be prone or braced to fire accurately
Sniper rifles	M24-A2, PSG-90, Dragunov SVD	Long-range picks from cover; bolt actions hit hardest
Shotguns	Mossberg 500, Spas 12, QBS-09	Close quarters and building clearing
Silenced SMGs	MP5SD, Scorpion Evo III, QCW-05	Stealth raids behind the lines
Grenade launchers	M79 and faction equivalents	Clearing clumped defenders and cover
Rocket launchers	M72 LAW, M2 Carl Gustav, RPG-7	Tanks, APCs, and emplacements
Pistols	Faction sidearms; rarer heavy pistols as loot	Silenced sidearms for stealth; heavy pistols for damage

Exact weapon rosters differ by faction and have shifted over updates, so treat the example names above as a guide and check the armory list in-game.

Throwables worth knowing: hand grenades (area damage on a fuse), impact grenades (explode on contact), stun grenades (disable without damage), C4 (manual detonation, destroys vehicles and structures), and claymores (trip-mines for defense).

A strong starter loadout: faction assault rifle, a silenced pistol, a stack of grenades, a vest, and two medikits. Add a rocket launcher once enemy armor starts appearing.

Deployables and Stationary Weapons

The armory sells deployable cover and stationary weapons (mounted machine guns, mortars and other emplacements, depending on faction and rank) you can place at a captured base. They are expensive but excellent for holding a point, especially on defense maps or when the AI counterattacks.

Tactics That Keep You Alive

Use cover everywhere. The cover system is real: crouching behind walls, sandbags, and vehicles blocks shots. Stay behind something at all times.
Flank. AI soldiers have poor awareness of what is behind them. Moving around the edge of a fight and shooting into the side of a group is the most reliable way to win engagements.
Move slowly near enemies. Sprinting makes you visible and inaccurate. Crouch-walk when approaching a contested base.
Fight at your weapon's range. Assault rifles lose accuracy at long range; do not duel snipers across open fields.
Clear with explosives. Grenades and launchers flush defenders out of buildings far more safely than walking in.
Stay with your squad. Your AI squadmates follow you and absorb enemy attention. Leading them into cover as a group is much stronger than lone-wolfing.

Side Objectives

Maps have optional objectives that change the war around you:

Destroy radio towers and other assets to reduce enemy support
Steal cargo trucks and drive them home for RP and loot
Rescue prisoners from enemy camps to gain allies
Find secret crates and vehicles hidden around maps (a popular community guide tracks these)

Side objectives are often less defended than the main front and give great rewards for a stealthy SMG or sniper loadout.

Online Invasion and Seasonal Events

Online Invasion is the long-running persistent multiplayer campaign where players fight together against AI factions. Seasonal events run there throughout the year:

Event	Typical content
Easter (since 2025)	The Cheeky Bunny enemies dropping event goodies
Summer	The Off-Duty Veteran, Cooler Boxes with rare items, and a VIP unit. In 2025 the VIP was a war reporter you escorted between bases; in 2026 it is The Agent, a dual Desert Eagle special agent who paradrops in after a few captures, marks every remaining enemy base, and rewards every connected player with an event ticket if she survives her mission
Halloween	Rippers, the Fire Demon, Pumpkin Knight, and Halloween Boxes with unique weapons
Christmas	Bad Santa, elves, and nutcrackers

Event content is on the official vanilla Invasion servers. The Summer 2026 event (launched June 23, 2026) was announced to last the entire summer; the 2025 summer event ran until September 8, so by late September it has most likely wrapped up. The Halloween event has historically started in late October (the 2025 one launched October 27 and ran about 20 days). Check the Steam news page for current dates.

Vehicles

The store page promises armed boats, tanks, and APCs, and vehicles decide a lot of fights:

Get your squad in. Your AI squadmates can man vehicle weapons, so driving a tank or armed boat with a full squad aboard is far stronger than driving alone.
Trucks are loot. Enemy cargo trucks are the classic RP side objective: steal one and drive it back to a friendly base.
Armor needs answers. Rifles do nothing to tanks. Carry a rocket launcher or C4 once enemy armor shows up, and hit vehicles from the side or rear while they are busy with the AI.
Do not park in the open. A stationary vehicle is a magnet for enemy launchers and artillery. Keep moving, or dismount and use it as cover.
Transport counts. Even an unarmed jeep saves minutes of walking to a distant objective, and minutes are XP.

Modes

Campaign (single-player or co-op): Map-by-map conquest against AI with adjustable settings such as difficulty and squad configurations
Quick match: Single map battles
Online Invasion: Official persistent co-op campaign against AI
PvP and PvPvE: Player-vs-player servers with AI armies
Mods: RWR has a large mod scene; many total conversions and the WW2 DLC modes grew out of it

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Running across open ground. Everyone sees you. Move between cover.
Spending all RP on one fancy gun and then dying without a vest. Armor first.
Teamkilling with explosives. It costs XP and ruins friendly pushes. Check the blast area before throwing.
Carrying loot into danger. If you picked up something rare, bank it first.
Ignoring vehicles. Tanks and APCs will shred infantry. Carry one launcher or C4 once armor appears.
Forgetting medikits. Downed teammates (and you) need them constantly.
Blindly following commander orders when a flank or objective is open.

Advanced Tips

Stealth raids: a silenced SMG or pistol plus a vest lets you infiltrate, destroy radio towers, and steal trucks with minimal resistance.
Squad setups: in campaign, configure squads with more rocket users on armor-heavy maps.
Stack support: paratroopers plus an artillery strike on the same base breaks almost any defense.
Defend smart: after capturing a base, place a stationary weapon facing the enemy's approach before moving on.
Shield play: shields slow you down but soak fire, which gives nearby teammates free kills.
Rotate your role: switch to medic duty when your team is getting wiped; healing XP is excellent and keeps the line alive.

FAQ

Is RUNNING WITH RIFLES still updated? Yes. Seasonal events continue on the official Invasion servers (Easter, Summer, Halloween, Christmas), with the modding community contributing much of the content. The core team is mainly working on RWR 2.

What is RWR 2? The sequel, announced on June 6, 2024, with its Steam store page published on March 11, 2026. It has no release date listed in the sources used here.

What is RUNNING WITH RIFLES: EXTENDED? A new DLC announced in March 2026 with a new campaign and two new factions, the Blueboots and the Whitefangs, plus new maps playable in Invasion. It was targeted for around Q3 2026; check the store for release status.

Which DLC should I buy first? PACIFIC if you want island and naval warfare, EDELWEISS for WW2 Europe. Both add their own factions, weapons, and maps.

Can I play solo? Yes. The single-player campaign uses the same systems as multiplayer, with AI filling both armies.

How do I get more RP fast? Sell looted weapons, steal enemy cargo trucks, capture bases, and bring rare drops back to base.