Hello! You probably noticed that I’ve been publishing more often. However, Strategy and Wargaming Weekly news round-up isn’t going anywhere, and will still be composed of the weekly news you so very much enjoy. Some of the news here you might have noticed already, but in any case, this nice round-up of what’s been going on in the last week or so is here to stay. So if you like your news in a nice digestive format, instead of reading them piecemeal, this will always be a staple of the website.
News Tower Out Now And It’s A Delight
Sparrow’s Night News Tower came out to the Steam Early Access program last month and it’s sporting an impressive 97% positive review rating from its audience. This convinced me to give its demo a go and confirm that the game is, in fact, pretty damn good. It avoids the pitfalls of modern-day journalism, doesn’t try to preach to you, and is set in a time where managing a publication involves a lot more than having a bunch of poorly educated college journos with an agenda publishing terrible takes on society and politics online for Twitter points.
Instead, News Tower is a tycoon game through and trough: You’ll be managing all your staff, from reporters to cleaning staff. Deciding what news you want to cover. Deciding what news to cover. Buying raw materials. Designing your building, and a lot more.
I just bought the game today, so hopefully a review might show up on the website soon enough.
Classified France ’44 Out On March 5th
My favourite game of 2024 so far – and soon to feature on the list of The Best PC Turn-Based Strategy Games in 2024– is coming out next week, on the 5th of March. If you haven’t, check my review on it, where I described it to be “A fun and well-crafted turn-based strategy title in the vein of XCOM that’s teetering near excellence. It’s filled to the brim with personality, all the while still packing some solid turn-based mechanics and perfectly designed missions. Its only drawbacks are the apparent lack of replayability and stiff animation work. Get over some of the clunk, and Classified France ’44 is a massive golden nugget waiting to be discovered.”
Scramble: Battle of Britain
The lack of any information about Scramble: Battle of Britain after its announcement more than a year ago, I was starting to fear for its existence. Fortunately, a new video from the lead developer appeared on Slitherine’s website, going over what planes will be in the game once it comes out.
He also teased the possibility of releasing more planes further down the line.
As for myself, I’m curious how this one will turn out.
Slitherine’s Field of Glory: Kingdoms Comes For Crusader Kings?
Field of Glory: Kingdom’s latest Developer Diary made it seem like the game was going be put individuals at the forefront of its gameplay mechanics, and trying to go toe-to-toe with its bigger, more established brother, and one of the best medieval games of all time, Crusader Kings 3.
Only to be dispelled in the last paragraph, where the team makes it abundantly clear that this is “primarily a historical strategy game, which has adopted a dynasty system to complete the picture, and we neither pretend nor aim to make it a dynastic role-playing game”.
Second Front Tank Commanders…
Are now a thing! Jo has been hard at work, implementing new factions, and also adding new gameplay mechanics. This time, tank commanders were added, and they’ll act very much as hero units “improving the aiming of guns on tanks” and, if their tank is knocked down, the tank commander might survive and act like an officer on the battlefield.
A friendly reminder that if you’ve never played Second Front, and love World War 2 turn-based games, then maybe it’s time to give this one a go, as it was ranked as 2023’s best Strategy Game by yours truly.
Rise of Industry 2 Announced
Somasim and Kasedo Games have announced Rise of Industry 2 in the most corny, 80s way imaginable.
The first Rise of Industry is a management/ tycoon video game set during the early 20th century, where you took to the economic stage as an up-and-coming industrialist. Rise of Industry’s sole DLC, 2130 took the series in a minor foray into the future, and now, the series is going back to the 80s, set in the land of the brave and the free, the good old USA.
Despite the lack of any gameplay, the core of the series is likely to remain the same, with added 80s flavour on top: managing supply chains, production, transportation schedules, setting up new facilities… From Steam’s description of the game “Provide the media industry with televisions, cameras, vinyl records, cassettes, computers, and video game consoles”, I would say the game will focus a lot on the rapid expansion of the media industry in the 80s and early 90s, but that’s just guesswork on my part.
Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance Out Now
Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance, one of the most anticipated games of 2024 just came out! Slitherine was nice enough to give a review key and I have to say: I’m rather impressed by it. The real-time strategy basics are all there, unit controls are snappy and responsive (this is what you should have done Iron Harvest!), the graphics are fantastic and the effects on everything are just top-notch. It falls into a great middle ground between being an arcade RTS with long-range engagements and somewhat realistic damage models for armoured units.
I’m currently writing a review on it.
Age of Empires 2: Victors and Vanquished DLC
The most iconic of Real-Time-Strategy game ever created – Age of Empires II – is getting its first campaign-focused expansion, headed by community creator turned developer Ramsey Abdulrahim, from World’s Edge.
Titled Victors and Vanquished, the new DLC features 14 community-inspired scenarios and 5 exclusive new ones. These have been updated to meet commercial standards, with every scenario getting bug fixes, professional voice acting, original musical scores, balancing and quality of life improvements.
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