Here we are — the final part of the History of History: World War II feature! This has been a long and fun ride and I hope everyone has found some games they enjoy. This last feature will talk about all the little guys of the World War II simulation genre. Notice that this is a very niche market. Even the most popular franchises get less than 50,000 sales, if they even hit that mark they are considered run-away successes.
Air Warrior II
Release Date: 2/28/1997
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 73%
Sales: <10,000
Air Warrior was one of the first WWII flight simulators out of the gate. It had a lot of feedback and some complex gameplay but was knocked for the chunky graphics and so-so network play (it was modem to modem back them). Still, man air simulation nuts loved it until the next great game came out.
Air Warrior III
Release Date: 11/30/1997
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 75%
Sales: <10,000
And not less than 6 months later the sequel is pretty much just an online game. After hearing about the problems with the second one, Kesmai went ahead and made it actually online and not LAN. The graphics were enhanced thanks to DirectX graphics to the issue of the chunky plane was gone. The gameplay itself didn’t change much from the last game, and it did have some pretty lame explosions.
WWII Fighters
Release Date: 1/1/1998
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 78%
Sales: <10,000
At the time, Jane’s flight series was top of the line. WWII Fighters pushed PCs to their limits (you needed at least a Pentium 233…GASP!) and had a bunch of cool extras like interviews and full specs on all the planes. The gameplay was tight, the graphics were awesome, and the online play was great. There wasn’t too much to complain about here, WWII simulation aficionados had something to brag about.
WarBirds
Release Date: 6/30/1998
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 76%
Sales: <10,000
Online games have come a long way. No longer do you need to host conventions or LAN parties just to play with someone. No longer do you need special paid server fees to go online. WarBirds was one of those, as many as 200 people could dogfight online, and a special convention was held in Texas every year just to play this game. Playing these flight sim combat games was all about online play. It will take you tens of hours just to learn the characteristic of one plane — then you have 49 more to learn…you do the math.
Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator: WWII Europe Series
Release Date: 9/30/1998
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 72%
Sales: <10,000
Microsoft Flight was popular because the community could create stuff to expand the game. This series and Quake were the two biggest and most modded games back in the late 90s (and a year later Unreal Tournament was added to that list). This expansion added WWII planes and a campaign, but with the communities help it made the expansion that much better.
Nations: WWII Fighter Command
Release Date: 10/31/1999
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 53%
Sales: <10,000
This game had an identity crisis. It was both an action arcade and simulation that didn’t work well. Up to this point, the mid-late ’90s were the best ear from flight simulation games. Nation was a disaster, the online component was completely action-oriented with simple controls. Many gamers took the game back due to “false advertising” on the box. This was not a fun time for Psygnosis.
B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th
Release Date: 12/13/2000
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 75%
Sales: <10,000
B-17 was a very ambitious and highly anticipated flight-sim at the time. You played as an entire crew in a warplane. The issues were the lack of an online component, the game had a horrible frame rate, and there were many bugs to be had. That said, fans still liked it and it had a not-so-great sequel.
Iron Aces
Release Date: 2/6/2001
Systems: DC
GameRankings: 69%
Sales: <10,000
A flight sim on DreamCast?! No way! Yes way, but it wasn’t all that great. It tried to please the impatient arcade console players while trying to lure PC sim players to consoles. This led to a boring experience and couldn’t get it right on either side. The Dreamcast had this issue with many PC games that went to consoles, it might have helped its quick demise.
B-17 Gunner: Air War Over Germany
Release Date: 5/20/2001
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 51%
Sales: <10,000
While not exactly a simulator, it spawned from the B-17 simulation series. The entire game suffered from an unplayable framerate that crippled the entire game. Despite this, it was only fun for 20 minutes at a time, probably something that would have been better on the PS2 at the time. Still worth a look if you like the series.
WarBirds III
Release Date: 3/19/2002
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 80%
Sales: <10,000
WarBirds was one of the kings of online flight sims at the time. Its biggest issue was the poor implementation of ground vehicles, something that Air Warrior II made a staple in the series. Why drive a vehicle to a base when you can fly there in a fraction of the time? It didn’t make any sense. Jumping into an AA gun was great from some instant action, yet despite these flaws, it was a-rockin’ online game.
Secret Weapons Over Normandy
Release Date: 11/18/2003
Systems: PS2, Xbox, PC
GameRankings:
PS2 — 79%
Xbox — 75%
PC — 73%
Sales:
PS2 — 480,000
Xbox — 250,000
PC — <10,000
Wow, finally a slight sim on consoles! Not really. It has a hint of simulation to it, a first-person cockpit, and that’s about it. The PS2 version looks the worst, but the graphics are very bland. It plays the best on PC, yet all the flight sim players turned their nose up at it. They “let those console players have it” while they continued to fight it out in WarBirds and IL-2 Sturmovik.
The History Channel: Battle of Britain: World War II 1940
Release Date: 10/16/2003
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 69%
Sales: <10,000
This game is pretty much a flight sim for casual players. There are a lot of auto options, easy difficulty, low system requirements, and various other things to bring in newcomers without making them pay hundreds of dollars for weird controllers and a fancy computer. The game plays surprisingly well, but it’s still a flight simulator. A lot of hardcore fans scoffed at it, but it is still a good entry for newcomers today.
FirePower for Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3
Release Date: 6/11/2004
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 89%
Sales: <10,000
This expansion added over 50 planes and a new campaign to the WWII lovers out there. One notable feature was being able to stick your head out the cockpit while taxing — something that every WWII sim couldn’t really do. While IL-2 was dominating the online flight sim pack — FirePower added more thrills to one of the most modded game series of all time.
Wings of Power: WWII Heavy Bombers and Jets
Release Date: 9/13/2004
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 87%
Sales: <10,000
Wings of Power was praised for the immaculate detail to the texture work and sound of the planes, the only downside was no combat. This is because the Flight Simulator 2004 engine was used and that engine doesn’t have combat built into it. If you just love flying planes this is your game, if you want some action, look elsewhere.
Pacific Fighters
Release Date: 10/26/2004
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 78%
Sales: <10,000
Pacific Fighters was probably a bit too real. It takes several minutes to prep yourself to make contact with the enemy and this is boring. The campaign was plagued with this, and no manner of great graphics will remedy it. You have to either make the scenarios yourself or download community-made ones. This one is for the very patient only.
Heroes of the Pacific
Release Date: 10/25/2005
Systems: PC, PS2, Xbox
GameRankings:
Xbox — 77%
PS2 — 76%
PC — 75%
Sales:
PS2 — 290,000
Xbox — 130,000
PC — 10,000
Yet another flight game that tried to appeal to both sides. It had solid gameplay, but was just repetitive and got boring after a while. The consoles mean dumbed-down arcadey gameplay that flight sim fans hated. It was a decent rental back in the day, but PC flight sim players stayed far away from it.
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
Release Date: 3/23/2006
Systems: PC, Xbox, PS2, X360, PS3, Wii
GameRankings:
Xbox — 72%
X360, PS3 — 66%
PC — 63%
Wii — 57%
Sales:
Wii — 810,000
PS3 — 630,000
X360 — 390,000
Xbox — 80,000
PC — <10,000
So it begins. Now that the consoles are powerful enough to have flight sims on them, they instead turn into mediocre arcade shooters. Blazing Angels was looked down upon with PC flight sim fanatics, and the console gamers ate it up. Surprisingly, the worst version, the Wii version, sold the most. It had dull mission objectives, bad voice acting, and just very middle of the road.
Wings of Power II: WWII Fighters
Release Date: 7/11/2006
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 92%
Sales: <10,000
One of the few WWII flight sims that didn’t focus on combat. This game was all about the approach, it had fantastic graphics (for its time) and was well-liked by fans. This game didn’t get much attention, even with hardcore sim fans which is sad.
Combat Wings: Battle of Britain
Release Date: 12/30/2006
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 80%
Sales: <10,000
Combat Wings was kind of so-so. It was all about the combat, forget everything else. Hardcore sim fans gave it a wide berth while casual players could enjoy it. The voices were in German only (while authentic it was distracting to read the subtitles) and the graphics were nice but cartoonish.
B-17: Fortress in the Sky
Release Date: 7/19/2007
Systems: DS
GameRankings: 34%
Sales: 20,000
One of the only WWII games on DS and the only WWII flight sim game. Taking a PC game and smashing it on the DS is a bad idea. The graphics were just awful and made everything an unrecognizable blur. The missions were all the same, and you just gunned down the same planes over and over again. Just stay away from this.
Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII
Release Date: 11/6/2007
Systems: PC, PS3, X360
GameRankings:
X360 — 72%
PS3 — 70%
PC — 69%
Sales:
X360 — 120,000
PS3 — 110,000
PC — <10,000
Blazing Angels 2 was pretty enjoyable in the sense that there was a lot to do. Tons of upgrades, a lot of planes, but no one was playing online and that’s what dogfighting is all about. Hardcore PC fans turned this down (as you can see by the sales). Consoles were taking over the flight sim market and turning into a bunch of arcade shooters. However, this niche market was dwindling fast and is the result of hardly any new flight sim games on PC.
WWII Aces
Release Date: 3/21/2008
Systems: Wii
GameRankings: 37%
Sales: 210,000
Another crappy flight game on Wii. Everything that could go wrong went wrong here. Awful motion controls, dated graphics, bland and boring missions, overly difficult. I actually saw this sitting in a bargain bin last month for $5. It’s sad that this is where the flight sim genre has wound up.
WWII Battle Tanks: T-34 vs Tiger
Release Date: 10/17/2008
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 66%
Sales: <10,000
This game is a decent simulator (for how rare tank simulators are). It had horrible graphics and bad controls but also featured a super short campaign. It was well-liked by sim fans, but quickly got overrun by World of Tanks.
Wings of Prey
Release Date: 12/25/2009
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 79%
Sales: <10,000
With so few flight sim games these days Wings of Prey was well received. While it was lacking in a few departments, it had plenty of planes to fly and some of the best flight sim graphics ever seen. If you want to play something more modern this is a good start.
Damage Inc.: Pacific Squadron WWII
Release Date: 8/28/2012
Systems: PC, PS3, X360
GameRankings:
X360 — 49%
PS3 — 44%
PC — 40%
Sales:
X360 — 30,000
PS3, PC — <10,000
It’s sad the great flight sim genre has to go out like this. Like being put down like a sick dog, Damage Inc ruined the whole genre. Being packaged with a cheap flight stick, consoles gamers will never know the glory of a true sim. The game was ugly, had horrible controls, was unresponsive, and had dull missions.
There really aren’t that many submarine simulators, Silent Hunter being among the best (and only of the few that exist). The series wowed the patient wargame and simulation gamers with its excellent graphics and long-winded fights. The series had ups and downs, like any series, but will always be among one of the best simulation games series of all time.
Silent Hunter
Release Date: 2/29/1996
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 81%
Sales: <10,000
At the time, Silent Hunter was one of the most realistic simulators ever made. The sound and graphics were “near perfection” and there was just so much put into here for the niche submarine lovers out there. It was just knocked a lot for having to be extremely patient to play. There isn’t much action here at all, Call of Duty fans won’t be playing Silent Hunter any time soon.
Silent Hunter II
Release Date: 11/5/2002
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 69%
Sales: <10,000
Silent Hunter II was probably the best naval combat sim at the time, but it was in development for so long that the developers forgot the long-term goal. The graphics were seriously outdated, the campaign was lackluster at best, and there were severe oversights in the realism department. The game was plenty playable, but the hardcore fans (the few out there) nitpicked this one to death.
Silent Hunter III
Release Date: 3/15/2005
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 89%
Sales: 40,000
Silent Hunter III is considered the best game in the series. Three long years after SH2, SH3 was a highly polished machine, probably the single best naval combat simulator ever made. They stepped up the graphics department a lot. This was one of the most realistic-looking games on PC at the time and required a new graphics card to run it. There were only minor issues with the save system, it didn’t support very high resolutions, and that’s about it. If you want a naval combat simulator (or to just check one out) this is it.
Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific
Release Date: 3/20/2007
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 80%
Sales: 30,000
After the excitement of SH3 players had to wait 2 long years for another game. This game was also highly praised but was just more of the same. It had some nasty bugs and the AI took a dive this time around. Still a great game if you enjoyed SH3.
Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific — U-Boat Missions
Release Date: 3/24/2008
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 73%
Sales: <10,000
This expansion for Wolves of the Pacific was just fine, it was just light on content. Only 2 boats and one small German campaign, that’s it. It was only $10 at the time so it was kind of like DLC instead of an expansion. Still worth a look if you love the series.
Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic
Release Date: 3/2/2010
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 61%
Sales: 210,000
Not only is this the best-selling SH game, but also the worst. I think the developers just didn’t care anymore. The game had so many bugs and glitches it was nearly unplayable, the new captain UI was hideous, and it just hogged the resources dry of even the beefiest system back in the day. The tutorials were useless and so was the manual. What happened!? This goes to show that even the best in a series can go downhill. This would be the last game in the series for the PC before jumping to iPhone.
Silent Hunter Mobile
Release Date: 4/5/2010
Systems: iPhone
GameRankings: 50%
Going from PC to mobile is really weird. The game looked good for the time but was plagued with extreme difficulty — extreme as in extremely easy. You can beat the whole game and can’t even die if you tried to get killed. It literally ruined the game, and it had a very slow and sluggish pace. This would be the last game in the series, who knows if Ubisoft will bring it back from the dead.
IL-2 Sturmovik was not only a legendary warplane of World War II but also a legendary flight sim for PC gamers. It has fantastic graphics (at the time) and was one of the most realistic sims of all time. The multiplayer was well talked about, but the canned campaign missions really brought the game down a bit. Thankfully, the IL2Gen utility allowed you to re-create randomly generated missions to help fix this issue. The missions were also short on objective hints and didn’t really tell you what to do. Most people didn’t even finish the campaign because of this.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles
Release Date: 3/2/2003
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 87%
Sales: 10,000
Forgotten Battles was the long-awaited expansion for the first game. It was a stand-alone game but didn’t quite have all the content people wanted. The campaign was still disappointing, but the improved graphics and audio experience helped quite a bit. Sim fans continued to mod the game and it looked like the IL-2 series made itself king of the flight sim family.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Operation Barbarossa
Release Date: 7/31/2003
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 66%
Sales: <10,000
Honestly, I can’t find much on this expansion. From what I can gather, fans were tired of the crappy campaigns and Barbarossa didn’t offer much that was new for the series. That 66% may be inaccurate because it’s based on just one review. It seems the series may have taken a nosedive at this point, but most of us will never know.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles – Ace
Release Date: 3/2/2004
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 82%
Sales: <10,000
This is where things picked up. Ace is the official expansion to the Forgotten Battles expansion. Ace was riddled with minor issues like there was no campaign for American fighters. The cockpits were fully rendered but nonfunctional, and various other technical problems with the planes during flight. Nothing that a few patches couldn’t fix, but fans ate it up and it helped continue the long-running successful series.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Pe-2
Release Date: 4/28/2006
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 85%
Sales: <10,000
Pe-2 has as little info as Barbarossa does. However, Pe-2 was a Europe-only release but the single reviewer seemed to have liked it. I can’t find much info on the series for how good it is, but from what I can gather it added many new great planes to fly and continued to slowly build the series into more excellence.
IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946
Release Date: 3/13/2007
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 85%
Sales: 30,000
1946 helped propel the series into a new generation and was the most successful so far. It accumulated all the previous games and made them playable on newer OS as well as adding a few tweaks, while also including all patches. This was a great package for newcomers and it seemed to have worked. If you want to start the IL-2 series this is the one to start with.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey
Release Date: 9/8/2009
Systems: PS3, X360, PSP, DS
GameRankings:
X360 — 80%
PS3 — 79%
PSP — 60%
DS — 42%
Sales:
PS3 — 640,000
X360 — 470,000
PSP — 170,000
DS — 60,000
Oh boy, this is something you don’t do, abandon your main fan base. For years IL-2 was PC gamer’s pride and joy and Ubisoft turns around and makes the latest version a console exclusive. It didn’t help that the game was terrible. The console versions were just okay, they had great graphics but that’s about it. They were more arcade-like and it was ruined by the fact that no one was playing online. The portable versions were terrible with the DS version being the worst, the game was literally unplayable and broken. The PSP version had slightly better controls but was really ugly.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover
Release Date: 4/16/2011
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 51%
Sales: 30,000
Ubisoft learned their lesson and brought the sequel (and so far final) game in the series back to PC. It was finally updated with top-notch visuals but was nearly unplayable thanks to the insurmountable amount of bugs and glitches. It shows that most series start out great and revolutionize something and then just fall apart in the end. The IL-2 series ran for 10 years with some ups and downs, but there are still many community fan sites that keep the series running.
The wrap-up of the strategy section of History of History: World War II deals with hits and misses over the past decade and a half. There were many strategy games that just flooded the PC market, and PC gamers had to sift through them to find the gems. Not all were bad, but some here just one-hit wonders never to see the light of day again.
Combat Command 2: Danger Forward!
Release Date: 12/17/2000
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 65%
Here’s an interesting game. It was by order mail only through the website and came shrink wrapped in a paper sleeve with the game manual. It was also play-by-e-mail as well so just imagine. The game is very simplistic, but fans of this genre know that doesn’t matter. The problem that held this game back so much was the terrible AI, and this was a problem with all war games back in the day until real-time strategy took off. It’s worth a look for the hardcore at least.
Sudden Strike
Release Date: 1/23/2001
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 76%
Sales: <10,000
Sudden Strike was a very simple WWII strategy game, it wasn’t serious at all. It had a toy soldier-type look to it, but didn’t sit well with hardcore strategy fans. Once you beat the campaign there was no reason to really go back.
Combat Command 2: Desert Rats
Release Date: 7/29/2001
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 71%
Not much changed from Danger Forward, but it was considered a bit better. It still had an overly simplistic design and look. It just pretty much got the job done but wasn’t really worth it unless you were a hardcore strategy gamer. Most people preferred the tabletop games, but good luck finding a copy.
Airborne Assault: Red Devils Over Arnhem
Release Date: 7/7/2002
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 77%
Sales: <10,000
Ever wonder how a game can be good with just one map? Call of Duty can’t. Airborne Assault could do it because it gave you full control. It came with a huge manual that detailed various tactical elements on the map, background on how the strategy works, tips, and various other things. They don’t make strategy games like they used to. This was back when you kicked your shoes off Friday night and sat down on your computer for 2 days doing nothing but figuring out the game. Your second weekend was dedicated to playing, and the third was conquering.
Strategic Command: European Theater
Release Date: 7/16/2002
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 67%
Strategic Command was well known for the “what if” scenarios you could play out rather than what happened hour by hour. It was still a simple borderline table-top-looking game, but it all came down to the core strategy. It was mainly plagued with terrible AI and wasn’t much different from other WWII strategy games at the time. Good luck finding someone today who will play these.
G.I. Combat
Release Date: 11/4/2002
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 44%
While most games thus far have been pretty decent, G.I. Combat is a real dud. This was back when strategy games started transitioning to 3D and weren’t doing a good job of it. The game had jerky animations, terrible graphics (even for back then), and downright awful AI. It also didn’t give you full control of your units.
World War II: Panzer Claws
Release Date: 11/14/2002
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 63%
Sales: <10,000
The end of 2002 was a time when strategy games for more casual players were coming out with more action like Command & Conquer and Warcraft. (Yes, it was an RTS before it was an MMO for all you kiddies out there) Panzer Claws had dated visuals that actually interrupted gameplay, as well as having that bad AI. This was a rough time for RTS.
World War II: Frontline Command
Release Date: 6/22/2003
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 72%
Frontline Command was a bit better, it had better graphics, but was still poorly paced, and had a bad interface. One mission would be fast-paced and fun, and the next three would be stealthy and bring everything to a crawl. It’s still worth looking into if you’re a hardcore RTS or WWII fan.
Squad Assault: West Front
Release Date: 11/2/2003
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 67%
Sales: <10,000
At this point in time, the Close Combat creators were pumping out games that kept resembling the groundbreaking strategy series. The graphics were still really dated, and it seemed the WWII strategy scene just couldn’t straighten itself out. While West Front wasn’t bad, it was just something we’ve played again many times before.
Airborne Assault: Highway to the Reich
Release Date: 12/10/2003
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 78%
Sales: <10,000
Wargaming is a really niche market, so niche that only 1 in maybe 100,000 people are into it. Airborne Assault finally got it right and pushed the genre a bit further. It was really fun and very accessible were many games in the past weren’t. If you love wargaming or want to get into it, this may be a good start.
War Times
Release Date: 4/1/2004
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 55%
War Times was riddled with many issues and lazy design. A lot of the maps were symmetrical so the AI could overwhelm you with better units quicker than you can build them, there were pathfinding issues, and many other problems that put this game at the bottom of the WWII RTS pile.
Soldiers: Heroes of World War II
Release Date: 6/30/2004
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 78%
Soldiers was an “almost but not quite” RTS game. It had a solid campaign and multiplayer but had issues with bad controls, difficulty, and various other small issues like bugs. I actually got this game free back when Direct2Drive was still around. I never got around to playing much, but the first two maps I played were fun, the game was accessible, and it had some entertaining presentation.
Codename: Panzers, Phase One
Release Date: 9/30/2004
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 81%
Sales: <10,000
The Codename: Panzers series seemed to hit the sweet spot for WWII RTS gamers back in the day. It had an excellent presentation, well-built maps, and a lengthy and challenging campaign. It was highly anticipated back in the day and was what Company of Heroes is now, the same kind of exposure. If you are itching for a good WWII RTS game I would start with this.
D-Day
Release Date: 12/7/2004
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 59%
Sales: <10,000
D-Day was just another WWII strategy game that was uninspired. The game had the usual problems, boring missions, bad pathfinding, dumb AI, and was just really generic. It did have some good interviews with war vets, but that’s about it.
Gary Grigsby’s World at War
Release Date: 3/25/2005
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 74%
Gary Gribsby’s was probably one of the best WWII wargame games to come out in years. It had clean visuals and addictive strategic gameplay that went beyond the usual Allies and Axis stuff. It just had some bad animations, a fixed resolution, and the menu was really cluttered.
Codename: Panzers, Phase Two
Release Date: 7/25/2005
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 80%
Sales: 10,000
Codename: Panzers continued to be a solid RTS franchise. The second game had more great missions, solid multiplayer, and one of the best things was that there were multiple solutions to most battles, which wasn’t like most RTS games. It did have dated graphics and a few other minor issues, but it was still solid.
Lock ‘n Load: Band of Heroes
Release Date: 8/26/2005
Systems: PC
GameRankings: N/A
Honestly, this is one of the most low-profile WWII strategy games you can find. There are no reviews for it online, it was that small of a game. I doubt this thing sold 1,000 copies. It was the video game version of the tabletop hex game. It was actually released during a game convention it was that low budget. I honestly can’t tell you how good the game is, but wargame fans should track it down.
Squad Assault: Second Wave
Release Date: 8/31/2005
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 60%
Sales: <10,000
Squad Assault fell into the mediocre range again bringing recycled content from past games. It was really just the first game but just all mixed up. It had dated graphics and was extremely difficult. Still worth a look for people who liked the first.
Blitzkrieg 2
Release Date: 10/2/2005
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 76%
Blitzkrieg 2 was popular because it was just fun and solid. It was fast-paced, had destructible environments, and looked clean. While it was technically dated (as most RTS games were back then) it was also very easy.
Strategic Command 2: Blitzkrieg
Release Date: 4/28/2006
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 62%
Strategic Command 2 was very average. It had terrible visuals, even by wargame standards, but had many scenarios and units, but the end battle outcomes were a bit confusing. This is probably only worth a look for hardcore wargame fans. Everyone else will fall asleep.
Rush for Berlin
Release Date: 6/12/2006
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 76%
Sales: <10,000
Rush for Berlin was a bit of a blessing for WWII RTS fans. It had great graphics, good AI, and amazing sound effects. It also had a great campaign and was very interesting to play. Anyone looking for an RTS game should check this out.
Moscow to Berlin: Red Siege
Release Date: 6/14/2006 Systems: PC
GameRankings: 57%
Red Siege was another flash in the pan WWII RTS game. By now the WWII craze had died down, and many gamers were tired of it. The game looked 4 years old, and it was bland and uninspired and just plain boring.
Faces of War
9/12/2006
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 66%
Sales: <10,000
Yet another WWII RTS that just looked good and forgot the rest. There were many AI problems, boring linear missions, and it just wasn’t interesting. As it is, this is just another forgotten WWII RTS game to throw into the pile.
Battlestations: Midway
Release Date: 1/30/2007
Systems: PC, X360
GameRankings:
PC — 77%
X360 — 73%
Sales:
X360 — 230,000
PC — 10,000
Battlestations was one of the last into the foray of WWII RTS games. It was highly anticipated because of the mix of strategy and action. You could control planes and subs, and it looked good. The only issue was that the game was too short, and had control issues on the Xbox 360. This is also one of the few WWII RTS games on consoles.
Blitzkrieg II: Fall of the Reich
Release Date: 2/22/2007
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 58%
Sales: <10,000
Blitzkrieg was a great underdog WWII RTS series, but the expansions totally blew it. They were insanely difficult, had control problems, and the missions were boring and derivative.
Blitzkrieg 2: Liberation
Release Date: 10/12/2007
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 58%
Sales: <10,000
Less than 6 months and another expansion are released. The more unforgiving difficulty, recycled content, and the same bad controls and missions design. Thankfully, Blitzkrieg hasn’t seen the light of day since.
Strategic Command 2: Weapons and Warfare
Release Date: 10/25/2007
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 85%
That 85% is misleading because it’s only one review. I can’t find much on this game, because the series pretty much died off and was already forgotten. This middling RTS series like Strategic Command and Blitzkrieg held on for dear life, but couldn’t make it due to the advance of PCs, the new generation of gamers, and the death of the WWII genre.
Panzer Tactics DS
Release Date: 11/6/2007
Systems: DS
GameRankings: 69%
Sales: 60,000
Wow! A wargame on the DS?! Impossible! This is the only one that exists on the system and it’s surprisingly good for the hardware’s limitations. Despite having a tiny screen, you can get a lot out of the game. It thankfully implements a thorough tutorial for the target audience, but can be very dry and has monotonous music. If you own a DS and need a wargame fix, this is your only option.
Theatre of War
Release Date: 5/19/2008
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 78%
Sales: 10,000
Theatre of War was one of the last successful WWII RTS franchises. It was very realistic down to the bullets, and wargame fans clamored for it. It was slow to start and did get boring in spots, so even casual RTS fans may balk at it. The game looked amazing (for the time it was a system hog) but the great AI and other features helped it along.
Battlestations: Pacific
Release Date: 5/12/2009
Systems: PC, X360
GameRankings:
PC — 77%
X360 — 76%
Sales:
X360 — 290,000
PC — 10,000
The short-lived Battlestations series went out with a bang thanks to its explosive action of plane and sub battles as well as the great graphics. It was well balanced and fun, some missions were just too slow to move along and it had terrible voice acting.
Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943
Release Date: 11/19/2009
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 64%
Theatre of War went downhill fast. It had great graphics, but the highly accurate battles and mechanics on the game just didn’t work out well this time around. It also had many bugs and crashes and the game was very short. Still worth a look if you liked the first one.
Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943
Release Date: 3/9/2010
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 66%
The Theatre of War franchise dropped like a rock due to the lack of polish and the WWII genre was now a niche market. No longer were games selling in the millions, people weren’t playing them online, only the die-hard were left. I can’t find much on Kursk, due to the poor reception of Africa this one didn’t sell too well and not much was changed from the previous game.
Order of War: Challenge
Release Date: 3/11/2010
Systems: PC
GameRankings: 72%
Sales: <10,000
Challenge is a great multiplayer expansion to the original and was just solid fun. At this point in time, the WWII genre had nearly completely faded from existence and only a few remaining games were left. Order of War is worth a look if you want a solid RTS game.
History: Legends of War: Patton
Release Date: 11/6/2012
Systems: PC, PS3, X360
GameRankings:
X360 — 61%
PS3 — 60%
PC — N/A
Probably the last WWII RTS game to come out shouldn’t be surprised that it’s a dud. There’s a lot of attention to historical detail, but that’s where it stops. It has bad AI, pathfinding problems, boring missions, and it just isn’t any fun to play. It is even worse to play on consoles. There was a version for Vita that was planned but it was canceled after the unsurprising criticism.
As you can see the WWII RTS genre kept a steady run throughout the 12 years of its popularity. Around 2006 the genre started dying, but there was a peppering of hardcore tabletop-style wargames. A few franchises were flashes in the pan like Theatre of War, Codename: Panzers, Blitzkrieg, and Battlestations. None of these could stand up to the WWII RTS juggernauts.
Close Combat was another long-running RTS series that didn’t get the spotlight. The first game was revolutionary because it was one of the first that had real-time combat and smart AI. It also had a slick interface. RTS fans were proud of this game, but the series eventually fell into mediocrity like nearly every game series does.
Close Combat
Release Date: 6/30/1996 — PC
GameRankings: 91%
Close Combat was one of the first real-time strategy games and it had smart AI and a great interface to boot. This game won strategy gamers over, it also had an intuitive tutorial which was hard to come by back then. This game pretty pre-dated every other WWII strategy game and can be called one of the first. It’s funny to hear people freak out about giving orders as you go, but before this game CPUs weren’t powerful enough to handle everything in real-time, it was all turn-based.
Close Combat II: A Bridge Too Far
Release Date: 9/30/1997 — PC
GameRankings: 89%
A Bridge Too Far is as perfect as the first game. The whole “real-time” thing was still buzzing everyone’s minds, so when another game came out that had it, it was highly praised. This just goes to show that Close Combat is one of the most highly polished RTS games EVER made, yes, even more, polished than some from today. The graphics are crisp and sharp, and the map design is spot-on as well as the mission structure. Even if you hate WWII games, this is a must-play for RTS fans.
Close Combat III: Russian Front
Release Date: 12/31/1998 — PC
GameRankings: 77%
Some say this is the best game in the series. It was just when the 3D transition was starting (people actually complained about that surprisingly) and was one of the last 2D games. It still had great graphics, and the gameplay was spot on. It added some touches here and there, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The missions structure and map design were superb as always. However, the opposite side was saying it’s too close to the last game and needs a serious reboot.
Close Combat IV: Battle of the Bulge
Release Date: 11/30/1999 — PC
GameRankings: 80%
The yearly releases of Close Combat were starting to take a toll on the series. The fourth game was a solid strategy game, but it didn’t have the revolutionary stuff like it did nearly four years ago. It was pretty much the same game in a different theatre of war, some fans were okay with that.
Close Combat V: Invasion: Normandy
Release Date: 10/10/2000 — PC
GameRankings: 76%
This is where Close Combat really took a nosedive. The developers didn’t want to advance the series in any way. The graphics were looking really dated and the same gameplay remained with just a new part of the war. The game still had solid AI and various other qualities from past games, but fans wanted more and they were seriously tired of marching to the same tune. The developers got the message because this was the last game in the series, and not a word was heard about it for nearly 6 years.
Close Combat: Cross of Iron
Release Date: 2/12/2007 — PC
GameRankings: 78%
Here’s how to not reboot a series, by making it the same as 10 years ago. The devs didn’t update the graphics and didn’t learn from their mistake 7 years ago. Close Combat was once a revolutionary strategy game but is now the old man in the back of the crowd that can’t be heard. This game was so unpopular that it’s hard to dig up info on it, and its sequel. The few people who did talk about it say that it’s still the same solid RTS game in another part of the war. Long-time fans may not care, but it’s a good game to jump into for newcomers.
Close Combat: Panthers in the Fog
Release Date: 11/19/2012 — PC
GameRankings: 80%
15 years later and the same formula remains. The graphics just look really good but are still 2D, and a layer of gloss was just added to the whole series. Is this the devs opus? Probably not, but why make such a dated game so far long the timeline? Fans are honestly tired of this series and why these games kept getting released is beyond me. Cross of Iron sold very few copies so what was the incentive here? The devs may also be naive to the fact that the WWII genre was pretty much dead in 2012 and was long forgotten.
Close Combat is a perfect series that shows how it can be revolutionary from the start and if it doesn’t learn new tricks it will quickly be forgotten. It was one of the first RTS games ever made, but seriously, why keep it so dated almost 15 years later? Close Combat is one of the most puzzling series as well in terms of design choices later on. It’s still one of the best RTS games that can grace you hard drive, so pick it up if you can.
Hearts of Iron isn’t a very flashy RTS, but it’s very deep. The entire series was a bit bumpy, it had many flaws, but was loved by hardcore RTS fans. The game allowed you to get an inside look at how WWII strategy and tactics were done. Most important of all it was addictive as ever and had a lot of features and deep research trees.
Hearts of Iron
Release Date: 11/24/2002 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 75%
The first game in the series was generally enjoyable but had a lot of flaws. It looked very generic trying to copy Europa Univeralis’s style. The menus were cluttered, the audio wasn’t qued right with actions, the AI was spotty, and it just wasn’t as polished as it could have been. It was a huge hit with strategy players and they regarded it as one of the best strategy games of the time, and the best WWII strategy game at the time. While Commandos was already long going, Hearts of Iron stole the deep tactical side of fans and the series was a hit with them.
Hearts of Iron II
Release Date: 1/4/2005 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 83%
Over two years fans had waited for a sequel and they finally got it. HoI3 is considered the best game in the series because it pretty much fixed all issues from the first game. It allowed an incredible amount of depth and gave you control of all sides of WWII. Play as the Japanese in China, or help fight the Nazis in Russia. This is what the first game should have been, but it still had a couple major issues. It was really hard to get into and was confusing for the first few hours. Most strategy games like this have a steep learning curve and require patience. The presentation looked even more dated and was way behind in terms of graphics from other strategy games. This didn’t stop fans because the series continued on.
Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday
Release Date: 4/7/2006 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 78%
With the success of the second game, Paradox release the expansion that included WWII and also part of the Cold War. It was basically Hearts of Iron II with nukes and make the game that much more intense. It still had the dated visuals and various other issues that Hearts of Iron II had, but was really solid and fun. The $20 price tag was a nice incentive, overall the game was just solid and fans who wanted more Iron II would love this.
Hearts of Iron III
Release Date: 8/11/2009 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 77%
While the WWII genre was already dead, Hearts of Iron III marched on. It finally delivered a higher-budget game with 3D graphics for once, it also addressed most of the issues from the last games. The game was pretty much redone to make you feel like a general instead of a drone by cutting back on micromanagement. The main issues were just lazy oversights like the typos in the game, translation issues, constant slow down from too many calculations in the background, and various other issues. While the old ones were fixed, new ones arose which really hurt this threequel in the end. It’s still a solid game, but fans of the series were getting bored at this point.
Hearts of Iron III: Semper Fi
Release Date: 6/7/2010 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 65%
Hearts of Iron pretty much lost all the fans as they moved on to better games. 2010 is late in the game for WWII games and Semper Fi did little to change the underlying issues of the series. It added new features, but various bugs remained that fans of the third game were fed up with. The series at this point got very little attention and even big-name game sites looked the other way. Paradox has always been known for making lesser-known strategy titles for the truly hardcore fans. Semper Fi added a fun Japanese campaign, but other than that was disappointing.
Hearts of Iron III: For the Motherland
Release Date: 6/28/2011 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 64%
Instead of concentrating on a fourth game Paradox continued with the tired, and now dead Hearts of Iron III. The game had been running for three years and there wasn’t much left to win fans over. Once again, the game fixed some previous issues but brought new ones, this time a lot of balancing issues. Many things like the US and UK have an unfair advantage because their economies are incorrectly set up and various issues like that. The game even had a scheduled third expansion that was later canceled.
Hearts of Iron was a great tabletop-style strategy game that in the end failed to keep fans interested because of the constant issues that plagued the series. Will we see another game? Maybe not because 2013 is a year where the last thing people want is another WWII strategy game. However, like Company of Heroes, if Hearts of Iron does something fantastic with the genre and series fans may come crawling back. We’re starting to see a real pattern here. Almost every WWII series has eventually driven itself into the ground. What can developers do to fix this? Not much. There’s only so much you can do with a historical event.
Commandos were one of the best strategy games of all time and one of the best WWII strategy games. Early on, Commandos was one of the few strategy games that pushed the genre forward. It was linear but allowed creativity and could be played cooperatively The game was just so well designed. The missions were varied, the pacing was great, and it was addictive. The series held up throughout its short-lived life, but strayed off to the FPS genre and didn’t do so well. What’s happening with Commandos now? No one knows. After the disastrous Strike Force in 2006, no one heard the hide or hair of the game. If you have an appetite for a great WWII strategy series, this is it.
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines
Release Date: 7/31/1998 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 80%
Behind Enemy Lines was praised for its tight gameplay, fun mission structure, and excellent map design. It had crisp sharp 2D graphics which was rare for strategy games back then. It was really overlooked and didn’t get a spotlight, but hardcore strategy fans ate it up like candy. The game was linear but allowed room to let you do things your own way. The game was just well made and fast-paced. It didn’t have the slog of some other strategy games like Civilization. A lot of fans say this was the best in the series, but later games were also solid.
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty
Release Date: 3/31/1999 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 79%
The expansion for the first game was alright but added new things that kind of broke what didn’t need to be fixed. It was also more difficult and was just too much like the first game. This is usually okay, but don’t change core mechanics that don’t need to be changed. The game was just not balanced as well with too many troops to really handle or deal with, and just various other things that fans didn’t like. It wasn’t terrible but could have used improvement.
Commandos 2: Men of Courage
Release Date: 9/20/2001 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 84%
Men of Courage is considered the best one in the series by everyone. It was just bigger and better. It was in 3D and allowed a 360-degree view of the battlefield which was high-tech back then. The only problems were that it was too difficult and had some pretty bad bugs. Men of Courage was probably the most popular in the series and even went on to have a console port which was rare for RTS games. It seems Pyro hit the sweet spot with fans, what more could they do?
Commandos 2: Men of Courage
Release Date: 8/28/2002 — PS2, Xbox
GameRankings: Xbox: 74%
PS2: 71%
Sales:
PS2: 180,000
Xbox: 70,000
Commandos 2 was so popular on PC that a console port was greenlit. The biggest challenge was translating the PC controls to a controller. It was a challenge, and as decent as the controls were, just didn’t translate well. This was the biggest issue with the console version, also the resolution was lowered so the small men on screen were hard to see. The game had major camera issues, but these were only apparent to players of the PC version. Console players who never played the PC version would be none the wiser. It was a solid strategy game on consoles and one of the few good ones on PS2 and Xbox.
Commandos 3: Destination Berlin
Release Date: 10/14/03 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 74%
Destination Berlin was the long-awaited sequel to Commandos 2. With better graphics and more gameplay ideas, fans were pumped. One underlying issue plagued Commandos 3 more than the other games, it was extremely difficult to the point that people gave up on it. It had excellent graphics, some of the best at the time, but more long-running issues remained unchanged. There were some interface issues, bugs, and various AI problems. The game was fun online like before, but the game didn’t sell as well as Commandos 2 and no one heard of the series since and hasn’t for 10 years. Strike Force came out three years later, but fans raged and refused to buy the game leading to its ultimate demise.
Commandos are one of the best strategy games around and it seems Company of Heroes has picked up the torch. It offered excellent maps, missions, and extremely difficult challenges. The multiplayer was fun and the graphics and sound were good and it continued to please fans. The ultimate demise was due to poor sales in the end. It wasn’t profitable enough for Eidos and they eventually canned the series after the dreadful Strike Force FPS. If you really want an old-school strategy game and some WWII mixed in this is the way to go.
There were dozens of WWII strategy games, almost more than shooters. The strategy allowed you to see the tactical side of the way and could play out real scenarios in a more realistic manner. Many of them were boring and bad, but the king of them all is the Company of Heroes. It revolutionized the strategy genre and surprisingly pushed PCs to their limits with DirectX 10 graphics. Who would have thought a strategy game would do that? Company of Heroes had a great interface, tons of levels, addictive multiplayer, and great strategy elements. The only issue was that the game was as buggy as sin, but slowly got patched over time.
Company of Heroes
Release Date: 9/13/2006 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 93%
Sales: Unknown
Company of Heroes was a fantastic game and one of the best strategy games ever made. It was just one of the best WWII games period. It had great tactics, a wonderful interface and really showed the gritty depressing tragedy of the war. You got down to the individual tactics that only a strategy game can do. It was praised by everyone for all the great features. It also used DirectX 10 graphics and really pushed PCs to their limits, it was a benchmark game and a graphics card seller. It only received some nit-picking about long load times, a lot of bugs, and the small number of factions you could choose. Every strategy gamer needs to play this.
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Release Date: 9/24/2007 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 87%
Sales: Unknown
Opposing Fronts was the highly anticipated expansion and was received warmly. It added new factions that were really needed and a whole new campaign that was a blast to play. The destructible environments really helped push the game’s surreal atmosphere, it honestly didn’t get better than this. Bugs still remained despite being a year old, yet fans at the game up like candy.
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
Release Date: 4/7/2009 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 71%
Sales: Unknown
I can’t say it enough, even the best games can fall from grace. Two years was a long gap for an expansion to come out. By now people had moved on, why Relic released an expansion 18 months later is a head-scratcher. You can really feel the lack of attention to the game because the new campaign could be finished in a couple of hours and was just lacking. It only added a few new maps and was just nothing compared to the previous games. THQ must have forced Relic to make this, it also looked really dated at this point in time. It goes to show that you can’t force and rush even the best of games. The series would take a long 4 year hiatus for the next sequel.
Company of Heroes 2
Release Date: 6/25/2013
GameRankings: N/A
Sales: N/A
I know this game isn’t out yet, but the fact that a WWII game is coming out in 2013 is pretty weird and scary. Can it live up to the original game? Will it have groundbreaking graphics again using DirectX 11? It focuses on the Russian front in 1941 which will be interesting. After all these mediocre WWII strategy games have come out what else can Company of Heroes offer? June 25 will tell all.
While Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and Battlefield became the established juggernauts, there were some other games that tried out the WWII genre craze, but also helped propel it into the dirt. Some franchises were successful such as Day of Defeat, Red Orchestra, Sniper Elite, and others. Some weren’t so successful, in fact, some were so bad they weren’t even playable or enjoyable. WWII was an easy genre to make money off of and some even tried telling their own non-fictional story through the war. A lot of these games just missed the point, recreating a war that was devastating and intense. The games either didn’t get the tragedy across, the action wasn’t what you would expect, or more often than not, the games were just poorly made. A lot were low budgets and were rushed. Many featured terrible enemy AI and a lot of them had terrible graphics which were a selling point with WWII games.
Hidden & Dangerous
Release Date: 7/29/99 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 75%
Publisher: Take-Two Interactive
Developer: Illusion Softworks
Sales: Unknown
Hidden & Dangerous was one of the first forays into the WWII genre. It offered tactical gameplay that was very solid but featured many bugs and glitches that made the game nearly unplayable. It still received high enough marks despite these complaints. The game was a step in the right direction but needed a lot more polish before being truly great.
Hidden & Dangerous
Release Date: 7/9/00 — DC
GameRankings: DC: 71%
Publisher: TalonSoft
Developer: Illusion Softworks
Sales: Unknown
Illusion ported the game over to Dreamcast to reap the revenue from the hot new system. Take-Two dropped Illusion after the poor sales and reception of the first game. While the game was the same experience as the PC version, it suffered from interface issues and didn’t fix any of those bugs and glitches, and also had audio problems. Hidden & Dangerous wouldn’t stop here though, the series would be rebooted half a decade later.
WWII: Normandy
Release Date: 1/31/01 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 57%
Publisher: Third Law Interactive
Developer: ValuSoft
Sales: Unknown
Here we have a winner, Normandy is considered one of the worst WWII shooters ever made. The game was ugly (even for back then) and was only 2 hours long, can you believe that? The game was bad in just about every corner you could imagine. Only 4 weapons, bad AI, lack of any suspense, stiff animations, bad hit detection, and just overall broken. The game was only $20, but it proved that budget games back in the day were exactly what you paid for. Take that $20 and buy the Saving Private Ryan Blu-Ray instead.
Deadly Dozen
Release Date: 10/31/01 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 61%
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Nfusion
Sales: Unknown
Deadly Dozen passed under most people’s radar because 2001 was a busy year for WWII shooters mainly because Allied Assault was on the way, and Serious Sam was just released. It was a fun bargain bin game, but nothing more. It suffered from terrible AI and an overall lack of polish like most cheap games back in the day. It’s worth a play-through now if you have a hankering for a squad-based WWII shooter. Deadly Dozen was one of the last low-budget/one-off WWII shooters to be released in 2001, however, everyone was ready for the 2002 releases.
WWII: Desert Rats
Release Date: 5/17/02 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 69%
Publisher: ValuSoft
Developer: Canopy Games
Sales: Unknown
Desert Rats managed to do something a bit different in the budget WWII arena and that was by letting you drive a jeep with a machine gun on it everywhere you went. You weren’t on foot here, instead, you were in the back of the jeep during the Africa theatre. This was a budget game done right, but still lacked the fine-tuned gameplay and various other things that made Call of Duty and Medal of Honor so popular. The game had terrible cut scenes, a lot of audio was drowned out due to bad editing, but overall a fun shooter until the next big-budget WWII game came out.
Prisoner of War
Release Date: 7/19/02 — PS2
GameRankings: PS2: 73%
Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Wide Games
Sales: <10,000
Prisoner of War was released first on PS2 and it was liked for the nice stealth elements, but the game was short and easy. However, it was a breath of fresh air from the one-man-army shooters and the bland budget WWII games. The PS2 version was knocked down a peg for having pretty bland graphics and having typical graphical issues with the PS2 like aliasing and poor animations. This game is worth a play-through (PC version is recommended) for people wanting a more slow-paced approach to their WWII game.
Prisoner of War
Release Date: 8/26/02 — Xbox
GameRankings: Xbox: 68%
Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Wide Games
Sales: 80,000
Prisoner of War debuted a month later on Xbox, but nothing changed from the PS2 version. Everyone expected better graphics on the more powerful console, but everything remained nearly the same. The excellent stealth gameplay was intact, but Xbox owners had the game under their thumb because Splinter Cell was due out soon and everyone quickly forgot about this game. The Xbox version was the best selling of the three.
Prisoner of War
Release Date: 9/30/02 — PS2, Xbox, PC
GameRankings: PC: 64%
Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Wide Games
Sales: <10,000
The PC version came out last, while everyone had already played it on consoles, PC owners finally got a crack at it thinking they had the superior version. PC owners were disappointed that nearly all previous problems existed and the graphics weren’t enhanced really at all. The draw distance was pushed back a bit but that’s about it. The game is still solid and was being compared to No One Lives Forever 2 and other PC shooters at the time. This game was put under a lot of heat for each consoles’ heavy hitters, but it stood up well, surprisingly. Three months of Prisoner of War and everyone was done and ready for the next big thing. The series sold less than 100,000 copies across all systems and was considered a retail failure.
Deadly Dozen: Pacific Theatre
Release Date: 10/31/02 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 78%
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Nfusion
Sales: Unknown
Deadly Dozen proved to be popular enough to garner another budget sequel. Pacific Theatre addressed all the problems from the first game but was still rough around the edges. It did have improved visuals and slightly better AI, but it still was lacking. The game finally had a multiplayer component and co-op which really won PC gamers over. This is probably one of the best budget-priced WWII shooters out there and is still fun even to this day. Deadly Dozen was one of the last budget WWII shooters for 2002 and somehow saw some light through the AAA WWII titles.
Day of Defeat
Release Date: 5/6/03 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 78%
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Valve
Sales: Unknown
Day of Defeat was one of the surprise hits of the year, while everyone was waiting on Half-Life 2, Valve released Day of Defeat to collect on the popular WWII craze at the time. It was an online-only shooter and it was well-liked for having addictive class-based multiplayer, but was released with tons of bugs and it looked really dated from using the original Half-Life engine. The engine was 4 years old and just couldn’t compare to games that were out at the time. It became very popular with a niche group and WWII shooter fans loved it. The game was later patched over time and became more stable and balanced.
The Great Escape
Release Date: 7/23/03 — PC, PS2, Xbox
GameRankings: PC: 59%
PS2, Xbox: 58%
Publisher: Gotham Games
Developer: Pivotal Games
Sales: PS2: 200,000
Xbox: 60,000
PC: <10,000
The Great Escape was one of the few WWII movie-based games, and like all movie-based games, it was pretty bad. The game was sloppy, had pointless stealth mechanics, and was full of boring fetch quests. It didn’t help that the game didn’t look all that great, and the PC version wasn’t improved at all. Splinter Cell really turned people’s minds around about stealth games at the time so everyone was comparing all the stealth games to Metal Gear Solid 2 and Splinter Cell. The Great Escape was a huge disappointment. I remember seeing this at Blockbuster as a kid and passed on it several times, I’m glad I did. The game sold about 260,000 copies across all systems and bombed.
Hidden & Dangerous 2
Release Date: 10/21/03 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 76%
Publisher: Gathering
Developer: Illusion Softworks
Sales: <10,000
I told you it would be back! The unpolished, yet decent budget squad-based shooter came back with a sequel, but many issues from the first game returned. The mistake was using the dated LS3D engine which was used in Mafia. It was a bad engine, rendered blurry textures, and just didn’t look good overall. The game was still a lot of trial and error because it was based on stealth and you would reload quick saves constantly. The AI still sucked, and just lacked the polish that this sequel needed. The illusion had to get a third publisher, and by now everyone pretty much gave up on this series, but it would come out with an expansion before saying goodbye for good. Hidden 2 was pretty much the last budget WWII shooter for 2003, everyone was starting to get tired of the genre by now thanks to Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, but PC players were in the background playing all these budget shooters.
Hidden & Dangerous 2: Sabre Squadron
Release Date: 10/21/04 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 69%
Publisher: Global Star Software
Developer: Illusion Softworks
Sales: <10,000
The illusion had really bad luck with this series by going with their fourth publisher. This budget expansion just didn’t do enough for fans hoping for that amazing fix that would bring the series to the forefront of the genre. A lot of new missions felt recycled and the same AI problems existed. The only appealing feature was that missions could be played co-operatively. That wasn’t enough to keep fans interested and the series finally died. 2004 was a slow year for budget WWII shooters and but it was a nice break for PC players.
Airborne Troops: Countdown to D-Day
Release Date: 1/7/05 — PS2
GameRankings: PS2: 39%
Publisher: Mud Duck Productions
Developer: Widescreen Games
Sales: 120,000
Want a way to start the year off? How about one of the worst WWII games ever made? Airborne Troops was so bad that it was literally unplayable. The controls were actually backward, up was down, and left was right. The graphics were God awful, even on the PS2. The animations were bad, the game would do things all on its own, the AI was terrible, the list goes on. Thankfully this game is hard to get a hold of and hopefully, no one will have to experience this mess of a game. The game sold about 120,000 copies worldwide so it did surprisingly well for budget games, but not well enough to continue the series.
Day of Defeat: Source
Release Date: 9/26/05 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 81%
Publisher: Valve
Developer: Valve
Sales: Unknown
After the huge success of the first game and the launch of Half-Life 2 the previous year, Day of Defeat comes back using the (then) state-of-the-art Source engine. The game is less buggy than the last one and more balanced but only comes with four maps at launch. The game still has a strong fan base to this day, 7 years later, and is one of the finest online multiplayer games out there. Despite it being WWII, and right at the peak of the genre, PC gamers ate it up regardless of the setting. After the abysmal Airborne Troops and various other WWII games were released, this is the best WWII shooter out right next to Call of Duty 2.
Sniper Elite
Release Date: 10/18/05 — PS2, Xbox, PC
GameRankings: PS2, Xbox: 76%
PC: 72%
Publisher: Namco
Developer: Rebellion
Sales:
Ps2: 190,000
Xbox: 90,000
Wii: 80,000
PC: 10,000
Finally, a high-budget stealth shooter set in WWII. While better than Prisoner of War it has its issues. The game had very satisfying headshots and long-range combat, the missions were very fun to play through but they were way too long. The game also required a lot of trial and error which was common in stealth games back then. The PC version looked slightly better than the consoles, but the graphics overall were very bland and boring. Sniper Elite hit it off well with WWII fans and the game sold pretty well. It just requires a lot of patience. The game would see a reboot several years later. The game only sold 220,000 copies and 10,000 on PC. That’s hardly any at all. Namco didn’t like those figures and dropped Rebellion shortly after.
Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers
Release Date: 11/21/05 — PS2, Xbox
GameRankings: Xbox: 60%
PS2: 59%
Publisher: SouthPeak Games
Developer: BattleBorne
Sales:
PS2: 60,000
Xbox: 30,000
The holidays of 2005 were the biggest release period for WWII shooters. Three Call of Dutys were out, and all these low-budget shooters. Combat Elite was an utter failure, so much so that the PC version that was released four months later sold nearly zero copies. In fact, there isn’t a single review for the game. The game tried an over-the-top approach to the action but was just so boring and dull that you just didn’t care. The game featured a weird shooting mechanic and had bad camera angles, you couldn’t see the action coming at you. Another low-budget WWII shooter proved that this type of model just didn’t work out well. Thankfully this was the last crappy low-budget WWII shooter for 2005, but 2006 held a lot of surprises. The game only sold 90,000 copies and was considered a failure, those 90,000 people suffered.
World War II Combat: Road to Berlin
Release Date: 1/24/06 — Xbox
GameRankings: Xbox: 22%
Publisher: Groove Games
Developer: Direct Action Games
Sales: 30,000
Here it is everyone! The king of the crappiest WWII shooter ever made. This game actually went on to make a sequel! I have no idea what the developers were thinking, but the game was actually unfinished. The friendly AI shot at you, the graphics looked 6 years old, and it was just no fun. Not a single thing worked in the game. It didn’t help that no one was playing online. This was probably one of the biggest bombs of 2006. This was a perfect example that low-budget WWII shooters just shouldn’t exist. This game was just bad on every level, I recommend playing this game just for something to laugh at. This is also the lowest selling WWII shooter that I can imagine. It only sold 30,000 copies and so few on PC that there’s no record of it (assuming less than 10,000). I feel sorry for every one of those 30,000 lost souls.
WWII Tank Commander
Release Date: 2/14/06 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 50%
Publisher: Merscom LLC
Developer: Sylum Entertainment
Sales: Unknown
Oh boy, the crappy budget WWII shooters kept on coming through 2006, this was the worst year for them. Tank Commander was playable, it was just so boring you wouldn’t want to. You literally just drove a tank around and shot other tanks in bland empty areas. It didn’t feel like WWII at all. In fact, you would find more action in a McDonald’s bathroom than these battlefields. The game was heavily scripted and the same tanks just came at you one after another. There was no online component so why even bother?
The Outfit
Release Date: 3/13/06 — X360
GameRankings: X360: 70%
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Relic
Sales: 220,000
The Outfit was one of the most anticipated games of 2006 because it was for the shiny new Xbox 360. A WWII shooter that promised to be rawer and has memorable characters. The fact is that the game just didn’t play right. The shooting didn’t work, it wasn’t satisfying, and it looked like a really good Xbox 1 game. It let fans down quickly and the game sold poorly and was quickly forgotten about. 2006 was a bad time for WWII shooters and the year just didn’t start out right for them. The reviews really hurt the game because it only sold 220,000 copies and THQ quickly scrapped the game. I’m surprised they didn’t drop Relic for it, but they were selling millions with their Warhammer strategy games on PC.
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45
Release Date: 3/14/06 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 79%
Publisher: Bold Games
Developer: Tripwire Interactive
Sales: Unknown
Finally, the year was looking up! A realistic WWII simulator that was online only. While everyone was enjoying Day of Defeat still, Red Orchestra came along. The game was a literal simulator. Multiple players had to work together to operate vehicles, there were one-shot kills and various other things that other WWII shooters didn’t incorporate. It was a little much, and the game lacked graphically using the Source engine which was starting to look dated. The learning curve was really steep and it turned most players away, however, there is a lot of fun to be had in this game and each kill was satisfying because you had to work at it.
World War II Combat: Road to Berlin
Release Date: 4/3/06 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 20%
Publisher: Groove Games
Developer: Direct Action Games
Sales: <10,000
Why would this game be released on PC 2 months later? What was the publisher thinking?! Probably fulfilling a contract most likely. The problem is the game was just as bad on PC with nothing fixed. The devs could have gone back and fixed many issues, but I guess it wasn’t worth it. The game sold almost no copies and every gamer turned the other way.
Commandos: Strike Force
Release Date: 4/4/06 — PS2, Xbox, PC
GameRankings: PS2, Xbox, PC: 63%
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Pyro Studios
Sales:
PS2: 60,000
Xbox: 20,000
PC: <10,000
While the strategy games were really successful and doing well, the series thought to jump ship and go for an FPS before the genre died. It didn’t do very well and was just another boring WWII shooter. The game looked fairly decent, but the levels were boring despite being open-ended. You could control a couple of soldiers and that’s about it. It also didn’t help that no one was playing online thanks to the bad reviews. It was another crappy WWII shooter swept under the rug by gamers. The genre was really hated at this point and no one really cared. Being on the then-dead Xbox and dated PS2 didn’t help either. Why it wasn’t on Xbox 360 is beyond anyone’s guess. The sales alone proved that they should stick to RTS. only 80,000 copies were sold, what a failure.
World War II Combat: Iwo Jima
Release Date: 7/21/06 — Xbox, PC
GameRankings: Xbox, PC: 25%
Publisher: Groove Games
Developer: Direct Action Games
Sales: 10,000
I’m not sure if this $20 budget game was released as a joke or to prove that Direct Action Games are awful developers. The game was just as bad as the last one, there isn’t a single redeeming thing in this game, not a single one. Usually, in bad games something is at least done right, but not Iwo Jima. This was just another crappy budget WWII shooter, and there’s a reason why this publisher and developer vanished off the face of the Earth. The PC version was released four days later, but once again it sold nearly zero copies and bankrupted the studios. Thank goodness for that! World War II Combat is probably the worst WWII franchise ever made. Iwo Jima was, thankfully, the last low-budget WWII shooter for 2006 and these started to taper off as console development got more and more expensive. The game sold only a third of the copies of the first game, just 10,000. What a surprise. That’s barely enough to pay a couple of people’s salaries on the development team. What a waste.
Hour of Victory
Release Date: 6/25/07 — X360
GameRankings: X360: 38%
Publisher: Midway
Developer: Nfusion
Sales: 120,000
2006 was just full of awful WWII shooters. Nfusion, makers of Deadly Dozen, made a huge comeback with the highly anticipated Hour of Victory. It turned out to be the second-worst WWII shooter ever made right next to World War II Combat. The game was just unfinished, it was buggy, ugly, and extremely short, there was no challenge to the game, and most people couldn’t even finish it because it kept crashing. Why Midway allowed this game to be released is beyond me, but I remember playing the demo and it froze up three times. Good job guys, way to ruin your already shaky reputation. The game would be re-released on PC to just Australia and UK due to the poor reception of this version. Thankfully, Hour of Victory was the one and only awful WWII shooter for 2007, it was a nice break. The game actually went on to sell 120,000 copies anyways which is quite a lot or such a poorly rated game.
Death to Spies
Release Date: 10/16/07 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 69%
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Haggard Games
Sales: <10,000
Death to Spies was a nice change of pace for lower-end WWII shooters. Death to Spies is probably the best WWII stealth action game ever made. It wasn’t perfect, but it won genre fans over and sold pretty decently. The game was praised for being very realistic and having great level design but was extremely difficult and a lot of the interface design got in the way of the game. If you have an itch for a stealth action game Death to Spies comes highly recommended.
Hour of Victory
Release Date: 2/22/08 — PC
GameRankings: 84%
Publisher: Midway
Developer: Nfusion
Sales: <10,000
What a way to start off the new year. WWII was quickly fazing out of the console market, but Midway thought it would be funny to release Hour of Victory to the PC suckers with almost no changes. The 84% review is just from one site that reviewed the game, however, that review is nowhere to be found. Why it got 84% is beyond me, maybe the game was actually better? Hour of Victory was the only budget WWII shooter for 2008, gamers got a nice long 2 year hiatus from them the games would continue to pepper the shelves throughout the next few years, however.
Oh man, the bad WWII shooters just didn’t stop coming. 2008 also had only one awful gem and that was Turning Point. It was highly anticipated and had a fairly big budget. It promised to do something new, but the game was just awful. I remember renting this and turning it back in halfway through the game. It was extremely frustrating, the guns didn’t fire where you aimed, and the controls were terrible. The animations were stiff and there were so many bugs and glitches, the game froze up a lot and the FPS dropped own into single digits often. I don’t know what it was but 2006 onward just bred so many bad WWII shooters. Call of Duty and Medal of Honor were pretty much done at this point in time, yet these just kept coming. I would pin Fall of Liberty as one of the top 5 worst WWII shooters ever made. Surprisingly, many gamers were suckers for it because it sold 500,000 copies globally. Why such a bad game sold so well is anyone’s guess, but it was highly anticipated so those could be pre-orders.
2009 wasn’t much better. Velvet Assassin was a highly anticipated stealth action game because it had a female as the protagonist which was never done in a WWII shooter. I remember renting this game for that alone, but the stealth mechanics were just broken and didn’t work. Sneaking around was pointless because enemies saw you no matter what you did, the kill moves were slow, and her crouch walk was like wading through molasses. The animations were stiff and the AI was just terrible. The levels were also badly designed because they were confusing mazes. I bought the game a few years later on PC to give it a second chance and the problems were just more obvious. Another example of how the WWII genre was kicked around like a sick dog in the late 2000s. The poor reviews weren’t in the game’s favor because it only sold 140,000 copies. That might be why we haven’t seen a sequel.
Death to Spies: Moment of Truth
Release Date: 8/10/09 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 71%
Publisher: 1C
Developer: Haggard Games
Sales: <10,000
Death to Spies didn’t sell well enough so Atari dropped Haggard, 1C liked their new game idea so they picked them up. Moment of Truth was another solid sequel, but the game suffered from the same insane difficulty that seriously hampered the last game. The AI also was pretty bad so when the action kicked up the game acted like it had down syndrome. It was still a very realistic stealth game and remains the best WWII stealth action game to date.
The Saboteur was a highly anticipated action game set in WWII. It had high production values and was one of Pandemic’s last games before they went belly up. The makers of The Mercenaries and various other open-ended games were masters of their craft, but the elements never really blended together right. The Saboteur had a great story and looked amazing, but all the mechanics didn’t work right. It suffered from clunky controls, climbing around was boring, and the stealth just didn’t work right. I enjoyed this game a lot (hey there’s nudity!) and was very enjoyable. If it had some more development time it could have been perfect. 2009 was a year of WWII stealth games and Death to Spies won the show. None of these games were perfect and had many flaws, but it was nice that developers were taking more time with the much-dated genre and steering it in a different direction. This was probably the most successful underdog WWII game selling 890,000 copies. That’s quite a bit, nothing to scoff at all. However, EA quickly dropped the franchise because it wasn’t a million-seller like their other franchises.
Dino D-Day
Release Date: 4/8/11 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 50%
Publisher: Digital Ranch Interactive
Developer: 800 North
Sales: <10,000
Dino D-Day was a highly anticipated indie game, it was late to the WWII game because the genre died a while ago. It promised Nazi online shooting with dinosaurs. It was supposed to be funny, and who would have thought it could go wrong? Well, everything went wrong. The game was just boring and sloppy. The guns didn’t feel powerful, the controls sucked, the maps were boring and badly put together. Overall it was just lacking in every department and players quickly forgot about the game.
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
Release Date: 9/13/11 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 74%
Publisher: Tripwire Interactive
Developer: Tripwire Interactive
Sales: 90,000
The self-published game returns with excellent visuals and is one of the most realistic reenactments of WWII infantry. The game was still knocked down for having such a steep learning curve, but the game was a lot of fun and had well-designed maps. It had some really bad single-player AI that nearly killed that portion of the game. Red Orchestra is still the most realistic WWII shooter ever made and still has a strong online following. 2011 is a bit late to release a WWII shooter since everyone has moved on from that genre craze. However, the shooters kept coming.
Sniper Elite V2
Release Date: 5/2/12
GameRankings: PS3: 71%
X360: 68%
PC: 65%
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Rebellion
Sales:
PS3: 600,000
X360: 590,000
PC: <10,000
After the not-so-great reception of the first game Rebellion needed another publisher. V2 had an amazing kill cam that would show X-Ray kills of the bullet entering the body and was really gory, but the game rest of the game was a total mess. The shooting was sloppy, the game was overly difficult, and the stealth was broken. It was highly anticipated but just fell flat and disappointed everyone. Despite the poor reviews, the game sold really well at 1.18 million copies across all systems. I guess that wasn’t enough for 505 because they dropped Rebellion shortly after the game’s release.
Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army
Release Date: 2/28/13 — PC
GameRankings: PC: 60%
Publisher: Rebellion
Developer: Rebellion
Sales: Unknown
Here we go, the last WWII shooter to come out, and what do you know, it sucked. Rebellion isn’t all that great of a developer anyway and they never learn their lesson. Nazi Zombie Army tried a Left 4 Dead/Call of Duty: Zombies spin-off of their game. It was boring, frustrating, and had all the problems from V2. It was released at a budget price, but no one caught the bait. It shows that WWII shooters just don’t have the care they used to.
So there it is. Almost every WWII shooter that came out and as you can see 80% were really bad. Not a single one really shined, it just made the whole genre look bad. It is a lot of money that can only make WWII shooters good? Call of Duty and Medal of Honor always had high production values but even they started going downhill after a while. These games were in the background being slammed by critics and ignored by gamers. A majority were on PC so only a niche group could get a hold of them. Prisoner of War proved to be a great stealth action game early on, while World War II Combat crowned itself genius by being the worst WWII shooter ever made. Death to Spies helped raise the genre from the ground a bit, but others like Velvet Assassin brought it right back down. The WWII shooter era peaked in 2005 and slow dripped out after that. Very few of these games are worth playing but go ahead anyway for a good laugh.
Ubisoft thought it would be a good idea to start a whole new World War II franchise right at the height of the genre and when it was hated most. It was a huge gamble because everyone was already playing Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and Battlefield. What could Ubisoft offer that these guys didn’t? For one, more realism. Brothers in Arms was the first WWII shooter to really portray the violence in the war. Every other shooter was like a shooting gallery. You shoot someone and they just fall dead. That feeling of realism from movies like Saving Private Ryan was never really translated in games, which it should have been. Brothers in Arms took the world by storm by being one of the best WWII franchises ever created, Ubisoft had a great formula here.
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
Release Date: 3/1/2005 — Xbox
GameRankings: Xbox: 88%
Sales: 660,000
Road to Hill 30 was warmly received as being one of the best WWII shooters since Frontline. The game was more realistic and offered a tactical layer that other shooters didn’t offer. You couldn’t just stand out in the open and shoot everyone, you had to use cover and think about your next move. The game also looked fantastic and pushed consoles to their limits. It also featured gore and violence never seen in Medal of Honor or Call of Duty. Everyone quickly forgot about the previous WWII games that were out and jumped into the addictive multiplayer. A new Call of Duty and Medal of Honor were due out at the end of 2005 so it was a perfect time for Ubisoft to release their virgin WWII shooter.
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
Release Date: 3/15/2005 — PS2, PC
GameRankings: PC: 87%
PS2: 85%
Sales:
Ps2: 460,000
PC: <10,000
Two weeks later Road to Hill 30 was released on PC and PS2. While the game sold the most on PS2 it didn’t perform as well as the others. The PC version was slightly looked down on for awkward controls and the PS2 had really bad graphics and was somehow extremely difficult. The Xbox version remained the superior version.
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
Release Date: 10/6/2005 — PC, Xbox
GameRankings: Xbox: 85%
PC: 84%
Sales:
Xbox: 310,000
PC: <10,000
It’s strange to release a sequel less than a year later, but Ubisoft did it and somehow it lived up to the original. Ubisoft realized how much everyone liked the game on PC and released it alongside the Xbox version. The game had another strong campaign, improved visuals, and the same fun multiplayer. The game had many improvements, and everyone wondered how Ubisoft did this much so quickly. While not as groundbreaking as Road to Hill 30, it was still a solid shooter and made it out just before the new Medal of Honor and Call of Duty were released. Surprisingly, the game sold more on PS2 than Xbox this time around.
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
Release Date: 10/26/2005 — PS2
GameRankings: PS2: 74%
Sales: 460,000
Ubisoft didn’t quite learn from their mistake from the last game and released a sub-par game on PS2. It featured worse graphics than the other versions and the AI just sucked. The game was obviously made on PC and was ported to PS2, the console was aging and just couldn’t keep up at the time. PS2 owners quickly forgot about this series because Earned in Blood would be the last BiA on current generation consoles.
Brothers in Arms: D-Day
Release Date: 12/5/2006 — PSP
GameRankings: PSP: 65%
Sales: 430,000
The other two franchises had an okay outing on PSP so Ubisoft thought to give it a try. It didn’t pan out so well like the other games, and tried to put the same type of game on PSP and it just didn’t work. Ubisoft obviously rushed this because the game was glitchy and the controls didn’t work on PSP. It wasn’t a disaster, but sold poorly and was quickly forgotten. This would be the one and only BiA game on PSP. It did surprisingly well sales-wise by selling almost half a million copies.
Brothers in Arms DS
Release Date: 6/21/2007 — DS
GameRankings: DS: 72%
Sales: 40,000
Ubisoft ditched the PSP and went with its competitor: The Nintendo DS. Ubisoft didn’t learn much from their last mistake and tried bringing a third-person shooter to an even weaker system. The graphics were terrible and the controls were worse than the PSP. It lacked a story like the console versions and the game was pretty basic. It was better than D-Day, but not by much. This would be the only BiA game on DS. The game also didn’t go over well for Nintendo. It only sold a measly 40,000 copies.
Brothers in Arms: Double Time
Release Date: 9/23/2008 — Wii
GameRankings: Wii: 46%
Sales: 110,000
Wow boy, Brothers in Arms went from the king of World War II shooters to the pits in just three years. The series was pretty much on hold until Hell’s Highway was released later in the year. With two mediocre handheld games, Ubisoft tried out the Wii and it was met with being the worst BiA game ever made. Double Time was a port of Road to Hill 30 and they just slapped the game on Wii with no second thought. It was ugly as sin, controlled terribly, and was just no fun. It ruined the excellent original, the game seriously bombed. This would be the only BiA game on Wii.
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway
Release Date: 10/7/2008 — PC, X360, PS3
GameRankings: PC, X360: 77%
PS3: 76%
Sales:
PS3: 870,000
X360: 830,000
PC: 10,000
Hell’s Highway was the highly anticipated trilogy finale and on next-generation consoles. The game looked amazing and played very well, the story was really interesting, but everyone was done with WWII shooters. EA tried it again in 2008 as well with Airborne, and everyone was just done. It didn’t stand up to the first two games, and BiA was pretty much on its way out. While Hell’s Highway was the last WWII shooter in the franchise, it continued later on iPhone with great success. Hell’s Highway was the most successful BiA game selling almost 2 million copies.
Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes
Release Date: 11/23/2008 — iPhone
GameRankings: iPhone: 69%
Sales: <10,000
Ubisoft handed the reigns to its mobile division, Gameloft, while they worked on the reboot. Hour of Heroes was a success on iPhone, but suffered from funky controls and was lacking some polish. It played well and was better than the previous handheld efforts, but still could have been more.
Brothers in Arms: Global Front
Release Date: 2/22/2010 — iPhone
GameRankings: iPhone: 81%
Sales: Unknown
2010 was really late to release a WWII shooter, but Gameloft did it anyway. The fire of hate for the genre had died down enough and the iPhone was a safe platform. The game was considered the best BiA handheld and featured great graphics, controls, and solid gameplay. It was only conned for poor AI and terrible voice acting. This would be the last game in the series, but at least it went out on a high note.
As you can see, just like the other two shooter franchises, Brothers in Arms started out great and quickly sunk into a mediocre abyss. The series has sold almost 5 million copies to date, not hugely successful, but enough to make it one of the top WWII shooters of all time. Handheld experiments didn’t pan out so well for the series either, and it shows that spin-offs and remakes don’t really work if you don’t change things around. Brothers in Arms still remains one of the best WWII franchises and took some serious risks coming out so late in the game. It offered a better story, more mature gameplay, and was just more solid in the end than Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.
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