Global Operations is a team-based first-person shooter offering a multiplayer experience for up to 24 players, as well as a single-player game with AI-controlled teammates and opponents. Teams consist of real special forces, peacekeepers, terrorists, rebel groups, and guerilla forces. Each of the 28 elite fighting forces in the game is based on the actual combatants in the real-world location being portrayed. Each level has various objectives specific to the map location and loosely based on actual events taking place in international locations like Peru and Sri Lanka. Players are able to choose from seven player specialties, including reconnaissance, sniper, demolitions, and heavy weapons. Each soldier has unique skills and weaponry, but is able to use any found weapons, even if it falls outside their specialization. Every weapon has been modeled after digital images of real guns with sounds that are based on the recordings of actual weapons. The game also features a complex ballistics system that takes into account material density, hardness, wall thickness, bullet caliber, player movement-based accuracy, and ricochets.