Review

Classified France ’44 is my favourite game of 2024 so far. A fun and well-crafted turn-based strategy title in the vein of XCOM that’s teetering near excelency. It’s filled to the brim with personality, all the while still packing some solid turn-based mechanics and perfectly designed missions. It’s 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.

• Genre: Turn-Based Combat
• Developer: Absolutely Games
• Publisher: Team17
• Release Date: 5 March, 2024
• Price: £34.99/$34.99/€34.99
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

Classified France 44 has the look of a dollar bin videogame or one of those weird discount boxes from the early 2000s. The graphics are… well, not great, and the animations are stiff, However, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks engrossed by its delectable varied, and custom-built turn-based battles. I’m nearing D-Day, and dreading the end of this adventure.

After the success of 2011’s XCOM, a game that singlehanded revived the turn-based-strategy genre, a World War 2 adaptation seemed like an obvious step. Years went by and, to my knowledge- and outside of the more traditional wargaming space- WW2 turn-based strategy games that exchange alien busting for kraut hunting don’t really exist. Until now, as 2024 marks the year that not only Classified France ’44 launches but also the release of Forgotten but Unbroken, until I’m convinced otherwise, its Steam Fest Demo a couple of months back failed to captivate.

Laying down the groundwork for D-Day

The year is 1944, and the date is D-Day minus 50. The Germans have their backs against the wall on the Eastern Front, are on their back foot in Italy, and suspicions of an Allied invasion plague the high command of the Wehrmacht. A group of 3 operatives are dropped behind enemy lines to link up with the French Resistance and cause as much damage and mayhem before the Higgins ramps finally drop. Similar to the games it draws its inspiration from, Classified France ’44’s gameplay is split between the tactical, turn-based battles, and its strategic layer.

You’re introduced to the game’s mechanic like every other game evolving parachuting into the French countryside: inside a barn, with Germans looking about. You’ll figure out that a silent knife in the dark is as effective as a shotgun blast. Shank enough Germans and get rewarded with an ambush turn.

These stealth mechanics are… barebones. Well, barebones but functional. The typical: enemy can see these as far as these squares, enter on it and be seen. A stab will make X squares of noise, if an enemy is inside, you’ll be heard. Kill an enemy, and their body disintegrates, so no need to worry about hiding them, it’s weird and strange at first, but it works. And that’s the great thing about this game, it might not excel in any particular slice of gameplay other than its mission design (but more on that later), but everything just works, and it works well. I can’t say I would mind having the possibility of making simultaneous kills, but that would be a bit unbalanced.

Classified France ’44 does a great job of conveying information to the player, highlighting the dangers and warning you before entering the enemy field of view, allowing for a last-minute change of plans. Some missions are built around stealth, but it isn’t necessary for success. Go guns blazing if you will, but 20 nazis are a tougher fight than 5. Stealth is usually part of some optional objective: say “kill 4 Luftwaffe ground crew”, or “infiltrate the warehouse without getting noticed”. The game also goes out of its way to reward optional objectives by giving the player more supplies.

Grand Strategy and the Bigger Picture

Supplies are the currency of the game and can be used for all sorts of things: weapons are acquired through the expenditure of said supplies. Want to heal a squad mate? Supplies. Want to assign an operative to help out a resistance faction? Supplies. Did I just describe how things work on the strategic map? Well, basically, but let me clear some things up. Time only moves when a battle is fought, and each battle moves the calendar a certain number of days closer to D-Day. In between every fight, you’ll be tasked with equipping your men, listening to their banter at the campfire, upgrading their abilities and choosing who gets to rest and who will be facing the gauntlet. It’s all very simple, but the limiting decisions you’re allowed to make also make them meaningful because you can only do one action at a time.

The Germans, however, won’t take your shtick lying down. They’ll be sending the Feldgendarmerie to take down your operations and punish your incursions. How the game handles this is by segmenting the map into areas. Do missions for the resistance faction that dominates the area and you’ll increase your control in that area. Reach level 3 and you’ll be granted some bonuses like increased supplies per mission or time reduction for certain actions. The Feldgendarmerie will occupy some areas and reduce your control of it, removing the bonuses. There’s always this interesting back-and-forth between your and the enemy’s efforts. Later down the line, you can fight back these punishment actions by hiring resistance fighting forces that will delay the German actions. It’s really cool and concise, but this leads me to what is probably my biggest gripe with the game: I don’t think there’s a whole lot of replayability here. The press-release for the game says that there are about 15 different endings, however, I don’t know if I would feel motivated enough to pursue them all, especially since all the missions almost surely repeat in every campaign. If they don’t, then I would be pleasantly surprised.

I’m only on my first campaign (and loving it), but all the missions I’ve played are too well-made to be randomly generated. If they are random, then Classified France ’44 has the best mission generator I’ve ever seen. However, the missions I played are the same as some of the trailers I’ve seen, so they appear to be hand-designed. And how well-designed they are. Each objective is different, and each secondary objective varies wildly from mission to mission, forcing you to adapt your tactics and the team you choose to deploy.

My second major complaint is how simplistic the mechanics of the resistance factions are. All you’re doing is filling up a meter and unlocking new cool toys to play around with and some fighting forces. There’s so much more that could have been done here: special units to recruit, call in reinforcements to help in the turn-based battles, unlocking special abilities, special characters, unit stat boosts. Maybe, choosing a faction over another would have negative consequences and they would make your job harder in some ways. There’s a lot that could have been done. As it stands, the factions act mainly as glorified shops.

Tough Fight On The Hedgerows

Classified France ’44 scuffles are tense, tough, and long-lasting. The basics are similar to XCOM, Gears Tactics, Xenonauts and other games of the genre: you have a certain number of action points to spend on movements, shooting and abilities. Use them all, and the turn ends.

Classified France ’44 innovates with its morale system. It acts as a parallel stat to health, Every time an enemy is shot at, or it shoots at you, the morale of the unit lowers. Get it below 50% and a unit is surpressed, and their action points are reduced. Destroy the whole bar and the unit becomes broken, and unable to act on the following turn. This means that, even if you miss, every shot taken has some kind of impact on the battlefield. It also adds another layer of options to consider: do you risk moving out of cover for a higher hit chance this turn? Or do you suppress the enemy and try to flank it the following turn with the help of another comrade? A single machine gunner can suppress 2 to 3 soldiers as long as they’re in their line of sight, making them more useful than they usually are in this kind of game. Keep in mind, of course, that this goes both ways. I think it’s a great addition, and it’s well-implemented. More often than not, I would actually take low-percentage shots just to deny the opponent the ability to move in the next turn and grant me a higher level of flexibility.

Successfully finish a mission and your crew will be stacked with experience for you to spend. Each class (there are 5 in total), can be specialized even further. Take the image below: the support class can specialize into a medic, tinkerer, corpsman or shotgunner.

To round this review up, compliments must be given to the creative ways the design team took generic army units and gave the Germans their very own playstyles and personalities. You have your Wermach grunt that dies with a burst, but a couple of missions in, the Feldgendarmerie show up and their toughness will put you to the test. The Fallshmijer will chuck grenades and try to close the distance, sometimes resorting to melee attacks. The Gestapo will really keep you on your toes, but I won’t ruin their appearance, as I think that learning how to deal with each enemy type is an important part of what makes Classified France ’44 battles so fascinating to engage with. There are way more units than the ones I listed, but it’s up to you to find out more about them.

Final Score: 9/10

Some might look at the score and consider it rather generous. My first impression would agree, but Dwelve deeper into Classified France ’44 and you’ll find plenty to be pleasently surprised by: the unique setting, the expertely put together turn-based tactical fundamentals, the carefully curated missions, the in-depth squad management, and the impressive enemy variety make Classified France ’44 the first standout game of 2024. I cannot wait for mods and DLCs.

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