The two classic Command and Conquer games – Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert – are still, to this day, my favorites in the entire RTS genre. But there are levels of detail and strategic complexity that Westwood’s pioneering hits just can’t accommodate. For greater depth and realism, you could turn to something like Warno, which feels closer to a military simulator, or ‘milsim.’ But again, you may hit a problem – there’s a very steep learning curve, and the amount of units, mechanics, and idiosyncrasies can become overwhelming. Somewhere between these two poles, the pick-up-and-play fun of Command and Conquer and the magnitude of Warno, is where we find Broken Arrow. A real-time strategy game that mixes realism and playability, it’s already been wishlisted on Steam nearing a million times.
Let’s take one of the RTS game’s campaign missions as an example. Maps in Broken Arrow are based on real locations, and the game’s story follows a fictional war between Russia and the United States. One of the opening battles involves destroying an anti-aircraft battery hidden inside a densely packed city center. There’s another buried deep within the surrounding woodland.
This is one of the best parts of Broken Arrow. Every individual aspect of the map is separately modeled and interactive. You don’t just roll through a generic representation of a city. You can order your troops to occupy buildings, convert them into firing positions, and then zoom right down to see every single asset in full detail.
It’s simple to control, but the strategic options are boundless. With enemy armor patrolling the city’s streets, I could, if I wanted, take them head on at ground level. A better option however is to establish missile crews on the top floors of the surrounding buildings and eliminate the tanks using Javelins.
Air, infantry, armor, and naval units are all accessible via separate tabs, and the key, naturally, is to effectively combine them. In the real-time strategy games of old, it’s all about sheer force, and terrain only matters so much. In Broken Arrow, a single mission or skirmish will include large-scale open battles, dogfights, and house-to-house urban combat – these are the best moments, when it feels like a huge version of Full Spectrum Warrior.
Arriving in June, Broken Arrow has already been wishlisted on Steam 800,000 times – as of this writing, it’s the 31st most wishlisted game on the whole platform, even ahead of big names like State of Decay 3, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and Spider-Man 2. If you want to check it out for yourself, just head here.
Alternatively, take a look at some of the best grand strategy games, or maybe the best 4X games on PC today.
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