Headquarters: World War II

Review

Operation Overlord was launched on June 6, 1944; to this day, it remains the largest amphibious invasion in military history. However, it was not just about the naval aspect of the operation. It was also about dropping a large contingency of soldiers behind enemy lines to secure key infrastructure points such as bridges so the Allied could liberate France and advance toward Germany. The airborne occurred first, and thousands of British soldiers were dropped behind enemy lines to take their objectives and hold them until the American forces took over the beaches and caught up with them. You are about to relive the accounts of these events from the American, British and German perspectives in Headquarters: World War II.

Headquarters: World War II is a turn-based strategy game developed by Starni Games and published by Slitherine Ltd. on April 12 2024, on the Steam platform.

The game consists of three campaigns, one for each force with nine missions each. The American campaign will start on the beaches of Normandy, as will the German campaign. The British campaign will be behind enemy lines. You can play a skirmish game and have an online mode. You can join the online mode through Steam or Slitherine accounts. However, you cannot enter tournaments or play via email if you log in with your Steam account. I haven't played a skirmish or an online game, so I can't comment about these modes, but I have played up to the last mission for the American campaign and two German and British missions.

Before the start of each mission, you'll be at your headquarters, where you’ll have information about the upcoming mission and can access the management unit's interface. You can swap units, upgrade them or assign a hero to one of your units at the headquarters. While assigning a hero doesn't cost anything, swapping units will cost prestige points and upgrading your unites will cost skill points. When you start any of the three campaigns, you'll only have six units available, and because you have not earned any prestige or skill points yet, you won't be able to do anything before the start of the second mission of each campaign. You'll start with a combination of seven infantry and motorised units, which includes a tank and a car. From the second mission, you can attach a transport vehicle to any of your infantry, depending on how many prestige points you received at the end of your previous mission. But don't worry; prestige points will accumulate from there on. So, you'll be able to swap units easily as you progress within the campaigns.

When you launch a mission, you'll have an excellent narrative introduction with a good voice-over outlaying the primary and secondary objectives. New objectives will be added in most missions as you complete the initial ones. The English narration voice-overs are great, but there is no German accent for the Nazis either in the narration or in-game voice-overs, which is a bit disappointing.

The battle interface is what you would expect for a tactical, strategic game. The map is displayed at the bottom left of your screen, and you'll have access to several options, including the settings. The bottom centre of your screen will display all your units, and on the right side you’ll see the unit you currently selected. Just above that, you'll have three to four additional perks you can use during battle. These perks are artillery, flight reconnaissance, bombers, morale boost, and reinforcement. Refilling these perks will take several turns before you can re-use them. The number of turns left to complete your mission will be displayed on the top right of the screen, and the countdown will start at 40 turns.  

As mentioned, I mostly played the American campaign and enjoyed all the missions, but I struggled in several of them, including the last one, which I haven't been able to beat. The German tiger tanks don't take on any damage from front shots from my tanks or artillery, and getting a bazooka unit close to these tiger tanks was quite tricky. I like the fact that you can destroy buildings and that tanks and trucks can remove destroyed vehicles from their path. In terms of actions, each unit will have a specific movement and action points. As units take on damage, their movement and action points will decrease. You can use the reinforcement perk on one unit, but it will take at least four turns to refill that perk. When you play the American campaign, you will have ongoing reinforcement. For example, new units will arrive on the beach on their first mission at every turn. But when you play the British Airborn campaign, there is no reinforcement available in the first two missions as they are behind enemy lines. I haven't played the other missions yet.

I thoroughly enjoyed the tactical tank-versus-tank battles but lost many of them. I mainly tried to ensure that my tank unit, with a hero and upgraded skills, was as healthy as possible. Because if they were taking out the fight, they would be replenished but within their skills. This is the case for all infantry, vehicle and artillery units. And let me tell you, it is a pain in the bum when you lose a bazooka, sniper or tank unit when they reach their third skill level. I had one mobile artillery unit in most missions I played so far. These units have a more extensive range of attacks and can severely damage anti-tank canons, infantry, and enemy-mobilised artillery units. It is vital to keep them as far away as possible from enemy artillery units but close enough to the field of battle. If they are destroyed, it will become a struggle for the rest of the mission, and if they are too far from the action, you'll probably suffer heavy infantry and light vehicle casualties.

I also like the fact that infantry units can launch an assault on enemy units that take cover in buildings. However, it would be best if you disturbed their overwatch stand before launching such an assault, especially if the unit you sent the order to has already received skill upgrades from the previous mission. You don't want to lose too many men from that unit.   

Regarding issues, I encountered several crashes to the desktop, which was pretty frustrating. But the game autosaves every turn, so you can quickly reload and rejoin the fight. Everything looks great on 2560 X 1440 resolution, but I experienced constant shading issues on higher resolutions, which affected the buildings more than anything else.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com

Headquarters: World War II Steam Store Page