Second Front: The Commonwealth Forces Have Arrived

My favourite game of 2023 and one of the Best World War 2 games ever devised, Second Front is well on its way to becoming the ultimate platform for World War 2 enthusiasts by adding the British forces and new desert terrain types, buildings and decorations.

The British Forces are composed of 45 tanks, 4 assault guns, 6 halftracks, 18 armored cars, 8 trucks, 9 guns, and their respective infantry.

The free DLC also adds 16 new scenarios and 1 new campaign.

Combat Mission: Final Blitzkrieg Going To Steam

Speaking of the best World War 2 ever devised, Combat Mission: Final Blitzkrieg is finally making its way to Steam in a couple of days, releasing on the 25th of January, alongside its latest DLC Combat Mission: Downfall. With this addition, all of the Combat Mission catalogue is at last fully available on Steam.

If you want to know more about Combat Mission read my quick impressions.

First Impressions: Combat Mission: Battle For Normandy, Shock Force 2, Black Sea

By the way, the whole franchise is also 50% off right now.

Wargame Design Studio Fantastic Year And Next Title

Wargame Design Studio end of end-of-year update is yet more proof that the strategy genre is going strong. Despite orders being down by 6%, it is important to remember that those grew by 84%, with the demos being the primary difference between the two comparing years, so what ended up happening was that “This had the opposite effect on average order value where it grew 14% year on year. In the prior year, we had seen our average order value being down by 45% due to the high mix of demos vs. full product ordered”.

It’s interesting to take a look at the most popular series, that all but confirm what would could have come up to by using common sense: Panzer Campaigns take the lead with 20%, Napoleonic Battles follow suit with 14%, Civil War Battles with 11% and Squad Battles with 10%. When the volume of sales is divided by the number of titles in a given series, then Musket and Pike take the lead with 14%, Panzer Battles and Modern Campaigns both with 13%, and Modern Air Power with 10%.

To round things up, their website visits went up by 29%.

Wargame Design Studio recently announced their upcoming title: Panzer Campaigns Spring Awakening ’45, set against the backdrop of Germany’s last major offensive action, the Plattensee Offensive.

ARA Gameplay Looks… Familiar

I’ll reserve my thoughts on this one until I get my hands on it, or at least when we get a full game. But as of right now, Ara: History Untold seems a whole lot similar to Civilization, in both looks and gameplay, with an added crafting system and simultaneous turns.

Armored Brigade 2 Infantry Devlog

2023 Might have been one of the best years in gaming history, but 2024 certainly isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. That is if Armored Brigade 2 is to launch later this year. The latest dev diary goes in-depth and explains some of the infantry improvements Veitikka Studios is doing to their pixeltruppen.

It’s too intricate to explain, so you’re better off reading the whole thing here.

Graviteam Tactics: Mius-Front To Release Another Historical Book

The Graviteam Tactics team is doing more work than some historians these days, as they just released, for free, a 190-page booking containing “translated operational documents (war diaries, orders, combat reports, and other primary sources) from the Red Army’s Izyum-Barvenkovo offensive operation […] these materials are complemented by translations of documents from the German formations and units opposing the Soviet Offensive”.

To all that, the translations “are accompanied by several dozens of original maps and aerial photographs from the battle, adding a visual component to the experience”.

As a former historian, I can’t explain how hard it is to do something like this, and then release it for free. They’ve done it before with their Bird Grove DLC.

2 Million Wishlist Manor Lords

You read that right, 2 million people have wishlisted the upcoming medieval city builder Manor Lords, making it one of the most anticipated games on Steam of all time. And people say strategy games are dying out.