Burden of Command™

I will start off by saying this game is a huge disappointment.

I'll be fair and to the point as possible for others considering buying it and then go into more depth.

#1 This is not a war game, it is a poorly written interactive novel with choose your own adventure style choices, which do not matter. You are locked into a hamster wheel with no actual freedom of choice, along with super poor tactical execution.

I have been a strategy and tactical combat war gamer all my life and I even have read a few of the choose your own adventure style books the lead writer has written. I recognized the linear decision style right away in the tutorial. This game i had high hopes for but its a huge nothing burger. You'll also be bombarded by the dev himsellf telling you all about his game in the tutorial which is arrogant and anoyying. The Dev clearly never heard Todd Howards' golden rule of developing
( is it fun) The dev wanted a game he could say was leadership focused but its just not. Its just a poorly written interactive novel with no real tactics except a simple rinse and repeat formula that you have to overuse.

You are better off reading a Jeff Shaara WW2 book and just enjoying the stories from that.

I rarely write negative reviews but after refunding myself and having two friends tell me how bad the experience was for them, who played longer then 2 hours and cant refund i decided to say something.

Save your money- This game is not going to end up being what you want or hope it will be.
Seriously its a poorly written story with terrible combat options
This my friends is your first choice in Value for money management!

This is another of the times I'd really prefer to give a neutral vote.

Game is obviously a researched labour of love and passion. More importantly, it does try something new in the genre, which in itself is rare enough to forgive game mechanics turning THE most melee-adverse army of WW2 into an army doctrinally melee-focused to the point instructors from the the Imperial Japanese Army boot camps would turn green with envy.

So why did I choose the "not recommended" option? Because the game tries to be a junior officer simulator, then repeatedly fails at differentiating between player and player character knowledge.

Here's a tutorial example: a choice needs to be made between two men. At this point player has seen one of those names mentioned once, which allows to deduce those are two of players three squad leaders, reinforcing the feeling player character has some knowledge of those two men. Thus, the obvious and logical choice (incidentaly, also one that would be drilled into any junior officer in OCS) would be to fall back on (player characters) knowledge instead of making a completely blind choice... which is treated as hesitation and punished accordingly.

This kind of artificialy blind choices assuming players knows everything player character does repeats from time to time, and while such approach would be explainable in a by definition repeated roguelite, it's imo an unforgivable failure in an attempted character simulation based on player immersion.

That being said, if this failure does not discourage you, it's still an interesting shot at turn-based tactics.

I've now beaten the game on the highest difficulty, and now pass my thoughts and judgement on the game.

Burden of Command is a flawed gem. There's nothing else quite like it, and as far as video games go, that's a major plus. There's a strong sense of progression, with managing your men as they try to survive and accomplish your objectives. I've seen criticisms of the basic systems of the game, but I fundamentally disagree with these, the basic systems are good. The idea is that you must keep your units in good order for them to have a good combat efficacy, and this is accomplished by a number of officer-led systems, such as bolstering and rallying. Many games overly focus on killing and not enough on morale, and this is a game about morale.

I've seen criticisms that the tutorial is too long or onerous. I didn't feel this way. It's a story-telling RPG, you're here because it's long. This is another strength, the story-telling elements. Frankly, if it was just the shooting, it would be an acceptable strategy game, but with this it becomes far more compelling.

I did feel this game had some serious flaws, or rather some things I would add to fix the game. The game encourages you not to save-scum, however I felt I had to start doing so, because about 60% of my casualties resulted not from calculated risks, but simply because I had zero idea a tile had LoS to another tile with an enemy in it; or that situation that seems to happen constantly, where there's a mixed bag of well-ordered and broken units, but you have no idea whether the danger icon, which shows for your unit's movement allowance going through an enemy LoS, is for the unit that won't fire at you, or the one which will inflict 6 deaths. There's an LoS tool to use for this, but it's clunky. If you click on a tile on the ground and move your camera at all, the tool deactivates, so you better hope that enemy is on screen with you. The only sure way is to click enemy by enemy, and try to remember which hexes are the real dangerous ones, and which ones are the fake dangerous ones. This could be easily fixed by having every enemy be highlighted who can fire on a particular tile when you highlight it, or some other such solution. Another good thing would be if you could "lock in" a dangerous enemy LoS, so you could keep their range highlighted when you're moving your units. I lost men constantly to: "They could fire from there?" And not: "I'm making this decision consciously, weighting my advance over safety", which is the whole conceit of the game.

It is also very annoying whenever your camera controls are taken from you, when you have to wait for artillery to play out, which may take 15-20 seconds depending on the circumstances.

The game also has quite a number of bugs, but they seem to be quick on fixing them.

Apparently the American army started using women and children, Volkssturm style, because I played very cautiously, and still was very much hurting for reinforcements (I almost always got Major Victories for the Men), just barely able to keep my company at full strength scenario to scenario. I would be 3 or 4 people down most scenarios. I didn't know the American army had such a recruiting crisis that it was willing to send in half-formed squads.

So, in toto, the game's flaws are a reasonably large number of petty annoyances which add up, whereas the core systems and gameplay is actually really good. I hope they polish this more, and I think it will be a really good title.

Great game if you love history, turn-based strategy, or roleplaying games. What I enjoy about this game is that it simulates the doctrine of modern combat, you are shooting to suppress and pin instead of just to kill people. Instead of health, the effectiveness of your units is gauged by morale and suppression as opposed to just a health bar. One thing to note is that the game is always ironman, you can't save scum at all, so keep that in mind if you're the kind of person who gets frustrated and reloads after you don't hit a 50% RNG.

Super surprised with how active and responsive the devs are, I've encountered a few bugs here and there but the game is being actively patched and worked on.

I can tell there was a lot of love and passion behind this game. Unfortunately it's so mechanically rough and deliberately obscure on gameplay elements I cannot recommend it. There's only so much I can put into a steam review and reasonably expect someone to read it, so I'll try to stick to larger points, but this will quickly get out of hand, because I am also passionate about this game.

As mentioned in other reviews, there are quite a few bugs as far as UI goes. I've had menus overlap, I've had images not load(or maybe it was supposed to just be a large red screen instead of an image that one time...) and in general the game is kinda clunky. The turns aren't "snappy", it takes a long time between actions, which is fine in some cases as it can give you an appreciation for infantry moving on an objective. But there are multiple times where you get artillery support, and you just have to sit there and watch shells land on a position that you don't have vision on, so you have no idea how effective they are, and it's not very visually impressive anyway...so you're kind of just waiting for it to end so you can go back to playing the game. I haven't once had a bombardment sweep through an area and go "Wow, they really messed those guys up." It just doesn't deliver the way it should. In that vein, the little text barks from units fall flat the same way for me as well. I don't expect a small indie game to have every line voiced, and I actually find that not having a voice for everything can immerse you more. The issue is that the barks don't really seem to...add anything. It's essentially your unit going [Commits war crimes.]...like cool, but something like that could probably benefit more from showing and detail versus just a one-off line of no consequence.

Now for the gameplay, which I have many more gripes with. This game wants you to feel the consequence and weight of your actions, so it opts to have as little manual saving as possible. It will save every turn, but it kind of scolds you if you try to reload a save and acts like you're invalidating the experience if you reload to avoid a poor outcome. That's a cool idea in theory, and it actually even has bugs related to trying to reload missions, so apparently reloading is so strongly discouraged it doesn't even need to work properly. The issue with this is that the game does a terrible job communicating things to you as the player. Did you not click your unit with an officer attached to it the exact number of times required to move only the officer? Congrats, your entire unit is now out of position and an extra order is wasted, no undo button, no confirmation. And if you're very unfortunate, you've now exposed them to enemy fire and they're suppressed, which will take even more effort to fix. Would you like to know where the fog of war is, what you have vision on and what you don't? Too bad, if you aren't going to meticulously click on each of your units or hexes on the map, you aren't going to find out, we won't darken the map for some reason. And LOS rules work by what's most convenient to screw you over. There's a map where for some reason, LOS is blocked by a row of trenches and can't see across the rest of the field to fire, even though that makes no sense as trenches would be in the ground, and not block vision at all(I think this is really so that the tank hiding in the brush behind them won't fire on your entire advance and completely break the mission, yet it will still be in place to ambush the flank that it's placed on because you would have expected it to fire earlier). But in the middle of the map, LOS runs through a trench line *that is also covered by trees*, and the only purpose seems to be because the enemy will have a tank on that road as well that can snipe yours if you try to maneuver across it. It's completely inconsistent and it feels deliberate so that you'll get sniped by a tank or MG42 that has incredible range and the game can point and go "Wow you really made a mistake there, do you feel the Burden" instead of the player saying "Wow the map design is trying really hard to trap me and screw me over". Recon by fire will sometimes reveal enemies, sometimes it won't. Assaults are mostly a test of morale and don't actually result in casualties, except for one mission where elite italian units killed anywhere between 2-5(!!) soldiers when I assaulted them...for some reason that was never explained, acknowledged, or ever happened again so far. The game had a sniper in a city that was shooting my units as they approached. I would have figured this was a unit on the map that I could have sweeped out, so when one of my units was shot in a hex that only had line of sight to its directly adjacent squares, I pushed into each of them...only to find out the only way to deal with the sniper is a narrative event involving my captain that 'requires your personal attention'...huh? My officers can't flush out a sniper on their own, I HAVE to use myself as bait if I don't want soldiers to die to an enemy that isn't even present on the map? Or maybe you think you're clever, and you want your Idealistic officer to use his special ability after the enemy has expended all their orders, so that when he stands up to inspire his men, nobody is able to return fire on him? Nah, it's just a dice roll and he'll die, you won't even see anyone shoot him on the map, he'll just drop dead. All of these things can happen through no real fault of the player, and yet the game scoffs at you and expects you to replay the entire turn, or just accept it and play on. It makes it feel more like I'm dealing with the burden of poor design than leadership.

Lastly I'll touch briefly on the writing, since I think it's one of the strongest points of the game by far. I really appreciate the videos and materials available in the game, I think it adds greatly to the atmosphere and it shows how much the developer truly cares about the game they're creating, and the message they're trying to send. However, even in this I feel like it is at odds with what it's trying to present itself as at times. One of the ideas in the game is that your leaders can die, sometimes as a result of your orders, sometimes as simple bad luck. Maybe they're wounded, or maybe they're dead. And one thing I think is very cool is that their replacement now has writing and scenes that you can experience, and obviously the other officer is gone. It makes me wonder what would have happened if I had sent someone other than Wilson to accept a surrender. What would have happened if Stern didn't get captured because I moved him forward too aggressively(the only time I've ever seen an enemy unit make an assault)? In the same breath, I think this ends up being a double-edged sword, because after the mission I lost Stern, he got what was practically a throwaway line to acknowledge his death and we moved right along, and he hasn't come up since. Wilson came up multiple times, so it feels more like that was 'meant' to happen. And of course, you have a whole dream sequence with the previous captain, which felt very over-the-top and not like the gritty, grounded leadership game Burden of Command is trying to be. Extremely out of place and felt more like what I'd expect from a movie.

All in all, the game isn't bad, and I want to finish it...but my experience is very mixed, and it's frustrating for the wrong reasons a lot of the time. I can't recommend it unless you're a hardcore fan of strategy games and you've played most of what's out there like I have. And it's painful not to recommend an indie game like this, because if it isn't successful, we'll likely never get a follow-up, and I think a game that could learn from the flaws of this one would have a lot of potential. Personally I've always thought the pacific theatre of WW2 was far more brutal, and it would be very well suited to the tests of leadership that this game tries to get you thinking about.

TL;DR

The game has an interest in being a historically-accurate leadership simulator, an XCOM-like tactical/strategic battler, and a roleplaying game about tough choices with impactful consequences for you and your team. Unfortunately, it only succeeds in the first of these.

Good

The developers here are doing something really interesting that I really feel like has never been done before with a real focus on historical facts, delivering the impact of war, and presenting a new and realistic model of how war was conducted in the time period. They are also an indie studio trying their best in a crowded market, and I respect that.

I have two core positive comments to make:
At its best moments, Burden of Command hits you hard with the reality of being a wartime leader, of making choices where there are is no clear answers, and then having to live with the consequences of that. This works best in the little vignette scenes between missions, where a simple multiple-choice system allows you to react to story events and set up the upcoming battles slightly differently. The writing hits hard and feels gritty and real, with heroics often being a matter of how the story is told rather than the facts on the ground. I do love this.

In addition, the tactics layer has some unique and interesting mechanical choices that mean that this game does play significantly differently to other games in the genre, and I applaud the developers for choosing to drive a game that is much more than a simple clone of other, more successful games. I don't want to move on without mentioning that it would have been very easy for them to create a cinematic XCOM-like in WW2 and leave it at that, and that I would not have purchased such a game.

Bad

This is where the review gets tough. After taking a short break from initially playing the game, I found that I had very little interest in picking it back up again, and I think that this is because while the game has credible claims at realism, leadership-centric game design, and fresh mechanics, it is not... actually a fun game.

The main problem I found was that the main part of the game, time-wise, is comprised of the tactical layer where you command your various squads and leaders in a hex-grid battle map. You move your guys up, do some suppression, maybe call in some heavy weapons. Unfortunately, every battle sort of plays out the same way - it's a difficult, grinding push into the teeth of enemy defenders until you get some of your guys to stand on the correct hex and the game finishes, hopefully fast enough and with low enough casualties.

That is, as far as I can tell, it. It's one difficult push into enemy positions after another, and the enemy AI doesn't need to be good (I don't think it does anything except fire at you if they have LOS), it just needs to exist and ambush-fire you whenever they make contact. It's not a very fun experience, and it's not very interesting once you've played a few repetitions of the same concept with slightly different backgrounds.

Afterwards, there is a short break to do some roleplaying (amazing stuff, but a couple minutes at most), a crude points-based system where you can give your squads a hope at becoming slightly better in a future difficult assault battle, and then you go back into another boring grind. Realistic this might be, you could point out, but it's not a fun game.

And that's what I walk away with - a game that's for sure devoted to its realism, but that seems to have forgotten that games exist to entertain, to hand at least a little power fantasy to the player in reward for their time and mastery. And this game seems to really want you to just play one mission over and over in order to tell you that war was hard and men die. A fitting museum concept, perhaps, but not a good game.

There are many other nitpicks to point out - the mostly pointless cutscenes, the hugely extended tutorial that still did not explore key concepts, a UI that often leaves me confused when making critical decisions, and a general lack of polish with typos and placeholder text in many places. These mar the surface finish of the game, but I do not mention them in detail because I believe the problems with the game are deeper and harder to solve.

With a heavy heart, I do not recommend.

Bullets do not kill in this game.
Enemies do not rout, retreat, can't be killed, wounded, broken, rendered combat ineffective in any other way than by forcing them to surrender.
If you catch an enemy infantry squad on the open ground, in a machine gun crossfire, fire on them with multiple infantry squads, pound them with artillery, tough luck. If you do not plan to leave your trenches and run into them onto the open field to accept their surrender, don't even bother.

But that only works one way.
I moved my one guy from the rocks through the rocks into the rocks and tank sniped me from the quadruple maximum garand range distance through the trees in one shot. I thought to myself,. wow, that was extremely unlucky.
I moved another officer same way - another tank sniped me.
I moved last two officers same way - they died also.
That was all in one turn.
That's 4 shots from the other side of the map, through the forest into a single man moving from hard cover through hard cover into hard cover.

There is something seriously wrong with the combat mechanics.

Edit. Honorable mention for hilariously bad tutorial. I haven't seen anything even half as bad in my life. It's so bad that it's good, worth checking out.

This is not a game. It's an experience. There are a lot of logical inconsistencies--dead characters resurrecting, enemies enduring unbelievable damage, victories awarded despite evident failure. It doesn't matter. The story backing the gameplay is so compelling that overlooking faults is rewarded by yet more compelling story telling. Beyond that mentioned above, the combat is believable and engrossing. The story telling is immersive. This is one of the best wargames I've ever played and that's saying a lot coming from a grognard like myself. Buy this game, follow its storyline, and you'll be richly rewarded.

OVERALL:

A good tactical wargame with great writing and narrative. If you like Computer Wargames at all I highly recommend it. Especially given the very reasonable price.

THE GOOD:

The narrative and RPG elements are fantastic and really engaging. They elevate the game from just another "tactical wargame" into something special. You really do care for the individual soldiers and you also get good organic framing for each battle.

The tactical combat system with platoon/captain activations adds positive friction to the scenarios and the reliably cadence of the 4Fs gives you a good basis for developing strategy. The combats focus on morale over direct casualties can be a bit hard to get to grips with but the end result feels correct. So far I've had several battles play out in much the way I would expect them to in a less abstract game like Combat Mission. The main difference being that instead of being punished through casualty build up you're platoons tend to just get pinned down.

THE MIXED:

Tutorial is overly long and doesn't give you the best picture of the game. Its not until near the end of the tutorial that you get a "real" exercise and not until North Africa that the game really shows its strength. This is about 2 to 3 hours in assuming you are fully engaging with everything.

The UI works fine but isn't fantastic. It does its job but it will take you a minute to get to grips with it. I suspect this is partially why the tutorial is so lengthy. They are introducing you to some slightly different concepts and a slightly confusing UI. By the time I had entered an actual combat scenario I felt comfortable with it though.

THE BAD:

The game isn't always clear about objectives or how you are interacting with them. It isn't a showstopper but it can leave you feeling somewhat confused. The game also runs somewhat slowly with some overly long delays between certain actions and some visible slowdowns while some calculations are being made. And finally the slowdowns combined with sometimes iffy UI can make some interactions a bit confusing.

Be Aware Of

Patches seem to be coming at a fairly decent pace. I know that some issues brought up in other reviews are already resolved. So be sure to check the news section and see where they are at. This is written on patch 1.08

TL;DR - Great game, unique experience, good tutorial for beginners!

First of all; the tutorial is not bad. It might be overly detailed for someone who's played similar games before, but for me it really helped me get into it and make the game "click". Or so I thought. Because once the actual campaign started I struggled, but the struggle tied into the narrative so well I didn't really mind losing, which is something that I haven't felt in any other game really. And then after a few struggling missions it "clicked" for real, and my now more experienced soldiers started winning, and now the game REALLY got good and interesting. The missions opened up to more tactical thinking and gave me more tools to use and actually flex my strategic muscles. I haven't finished the campaign yet, but when I do I think I will likely run through it again and do everything different, just to see another version of the story.

Let me start by saying this game has an interesting concept.

I see where they're going with this, but this is really subpar to what I would have thought after how long it took them to finally release this.

I've been following this game for literal years. I think I remember hearing about it like 5 years ago and I have been very interested in it ever since.

From the "improved" images which lead you to believe they are AI generated to the clunky interface and the generally ugly graphics, the game lacks things which would give it those quality points that you could sit there and say "Wow, they did a really nice job on this."

Now, don't get me wrong, the game is only $25 and there is clearly a lot of work that went into this, but things that very clearly should have been improved, fixed, and polished are still very rigid and overall just sort of off-putting.

Some points:
-The UI is horrendous. How this made it past QA is beyond me. It works, but dang it could work and look better... and be better in general.
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-Bugs. A lot of em.
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-Forced turn timers (turn limits on missions) which are quite short. In reality, yes, objectives and orders needed to be carried out and you couldn't just do them when you felt like it, but at the same time, you never had an automatic failure due to being slightly behind the desired time for instance. One, that would cause a lot of extra room for error and casualties, and two, it would defeats the purpose of the whole section of tutorial about spotting, using information you have effectively, not rushing, and so on. Obviously, it is to give a sense of urgency and also because obviously you need to help your greater force that are not represented on screen (being that you are part of something bigger), but it just ruins a lot for me personally and others. Yes, I have played many of these games, but I still hate them and there's nothing more I can say about them.
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-The tutorial is terrible. I actually like the scenarios, but the videos of the dev trying to be funny just made me cringe and they felt entirely pointless since just a moment before, there was literally a text description telling you exactly what to do. They state that the "playtesters" overwhelmingly voiced their support for the videos, yet in my playtime I encountered bugs which have already been reported on the forums previously. Your playtesters couldn't tell you about those, but needed to be hand-held through the most basic stuff that anyone with an IQ above room temperature could just read and replicate? Especially for a game such as this where, and I'm talking about the majority here, most the players coming to play this VERY HIGHLY LIKELY already have experience in similar games?
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-Some commands do not always give feedback on what or why something is happening. An example is assaulting. You need to pass a test first to initiate the assault, and then the actual assault itself. I understand the idea, I even agree it's a good one, but the lack of feedback is damning here. It shows absolutely nothing and it is often like you didn't even click at all, but you lost the order point.
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-The sound effects are serviceable. Not awful, but not great. I didn't expect anything stellar in this regard, so this is minor in my opinion.
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-The text/image popups during a mission become a bit much very quick. It detracts from the experience and it interrupts the flow. I am almost hesitant to end my round/turn sometimes because it constantly has another wall of text to read. I don't mind reading, I don't mind reading a lot, but I am trying to look at, understand, and plan my course of action and then the game sticks another wall of text in front of me. No, I'm not timed in real time, so I can go at my own pace, but I'd like to be able to move the turn forward once or twice to let things happen without being yet again stalled by textblocks.
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-It's not always abundantly clear why, but sometimes your units will not do an order EVEN THE MOUSE CURSOR is showing will be done. Example again is assaulting. It should show a knife to do so, and sometimes does, but still the unit will fire instead. This is a known issue, but the devs have basically said it's due to lack of player understanding. Yet, the videos in their "excellent" tutorial and even the test slides say that this is how you determine if you will assault or fire.
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-General lack of recon mechanics. At most you have "creep" to slowly move, or you have "recon by fire" which is exactly as it sounds. You cannot break up squads to have a couple of guys as a scout team - which was often done in reality which this game is supposedly trying to simulate - to have them do some recon and report back. No, everyone always moves as a big bunch of blind folk.
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-The developers do answer posts, but going off of their replies on the forums (not even to me, just to other players), they one: seem almost entirely opposed to feedback now that the game is released, two: are delusional and believe that their game is the next best thing since bottled water and think that it is absolutely genre-redefining, and three: don't seem to think the game has much need for improvement. Instead of taking my word for it or automatically hitting the "funny button" on this review, just go take a look for yourself on the forums. An example of this is how MANY people have said the tutorial is terrible and countless posts and threads have been made about it, so the devs went ahead and made a pinned post about how it's better that the tutorial is this way and they yet again (because in game and all over the forums wasn't already enough) explain why the tutorial has to be a slog and the videos are 100% necessary and the hand holding is what their expert playtesters decided on. Yawn.
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-The graphics are really uninspired. They say that an artist hand-drew this stuff and that's admirable, but they intentionally made scenery (terrain) blurry (even the devs acknowledge this) and it just looks bad up close.
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-You cannot freely save/restart missions/retry things at east or at will. They even deliberately added popups in game if you try to save scum. I understand they want you to learn from your mistakes and live by your choices, but for the love of god, at least let us actually learn from our mistakes instead of just stone walling us into bad situations. WE'RE HERE TO PLAY A GAME. NOT ACTUALLY LEADING OTHER HUMAN BEINGS WITH LIVES OF THEIR OWN.
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-Ultimately, your decisions really don't have much impact. I know this from watching videos of the campaign ahead of where I currently am in the game. Characters have "plot armor" and die at pre-defined times no matter what you do beforehand, and it takes you out of the experience. Knowing that characters cannot die until a predetermined point makes it feel less meaningful.
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-The turn based tactical combat is about what you'd expect. Nothing to write home about, but not bad.
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-The story and narrative are actually interesting, but it feels more like an interactive novel with VERY limited amount of actually playing and leading for the tactical aspect and it boils down to more reading than anything. Which is fine, but I wish this were better balanced.
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-The fact that they included actual images is great, but the "improvements" they made to them are not only amateurish at best, they look downright awful. Again, they look like AI generated images and a lot of complaints on the forums and in other reviews agree. They should have left them alone. Do you really think people are expecting amazing quality for period-authentic war photos from over 80 years ago at this point?
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Bottom line:
I could go on, but I genuinely don't believe this game is worth the asking price. I think $15 max and $10 would be a good price point. $25 seems much too high and $20 (what I paid given they had a release sale) is even still a lot for what you get.

EDIT: Updated for easier readability

Been tracking this game for a long time, and was really looking forward to playing it. Basically I get the idea behind it. However, whilst I really don't want to put down a game like this, which is trying to be exactly the kind of game I want to play. Sadly, got to say it is clunky as anything, confusing and not as realistic as I sense the developers think it is. Chuck away line. I have been shot at, for real, and the concept you can only get so suppressed is a little bit odd. Sure, not many people might get killed, but a few might run? More basically, the graphics are really poor, especially on a big screen. So what? I am not after a AAA game with sparkling visuals. But, I do need to basically see what is going on. Sadly, as it is, I can't. Add to that giving clear orders, only to find I haven't, and suddenly the Platoon Commander charges off, in the wrong direction. On his own. OK, let's get the that is what officers do jokes out the way. But in this context, it is baffling, and frustrating. And does promote the kind of 'save scumming' the whole (very long) tutorial discourages. I could pick away endlessly. It is a game about finding flanks. Yet we end up with tiny maps, where every avenue of approach is covered by the enemy. So, there are no flanks. All in all, it adds up to a frustrating experience, as I want to love this kind of game. All I hope is they get enough money, and I am really happy for the devs to keep mine, to buff this up to something reflecting of the potential that is here. Sorry, I feel mean not to recommend, but at the moment have to to be honest.

Rarely does one get to play a game that will for sure gather a bigger and bigger following as word spreads about it. An innovative game, with a fresh take on tactical and narrative decision making

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:

This game is a passion project by people who clearly care about the subject matter and have a great vision for a game... but the execution is extremely rough for a launch product, to the point I'd have to non-recommend until some of the issues are ironed out.

THE GOOD:

Even only a fraction of the way into the Morocco campaign, I can tell that the historical narrative and emphasis on your role as a leader (not just as an omniscient tactical director) is spot on. Which is good, because it's the game's main selling point, but still bears mention. While some of the Crucible events can be a bit on-the-nose for "defining moments of character," they have just enough variety to avoid cliche and remain engaging.

The game also has an absolute mountain of historical reference work. Almost every image is comprehensively sourced, and it's obvious a lot of love and care went into representing the reality of the War and what it was like to live in it - not just from a combat perspective, but in terms of lifestyle and mindset. This is very clearly a game made by people who genuinely care for the subject material and treating it with respect.

THE MIXED:

The game tries to be very upfront and fair with the deterministic parts of its combat mechanics: it's refreshing to have the full set of variables visible with their strength and priority. However, a LOT of these variables are never actually explained outright. While they attempt to have the "BoCopedia" as a comprehensive guide beyond the tutorial, it doesn't actually add anything - it's just the same set of graphic pointers shown in the tutorial, just in a better grouping. To use a metaphor: it's like if someone made a Powerpoint summary of a subject instead of writing an actual paper on the subject. The outline of the information is there, and it's summarized, but the actual, literal rules are nowhere to be found.

The devschose to represent the "reality" of combat in WW2 being relatively low-casualty, as soldiers' sense of self-preservation meant people were more likely to run or surrender than stand and be slaughtered. This is interesting on paper, and a refreshing change to "Pew pew HP goes down" tactical games we're used to, but in execution there are major flaws: namely, the only way to kill/remove a unit from the board is assaulting in melee. And assaults are a grind - they're challenging RNG rolls with very limited buff options, and having to get the unit in melee range is a chore. That there's no way to neutralize an enemy from range is as frustrating as it is immersion-breaking - the enemy never retreats, and your men end up refusing orders to cross an open field because it's "threatened" by a rifle squad that's been hammered into the dirt by two MGs and a mortar for multiple turns.

THE BAD:

I can't tell if the game didn't have a QA pass or uploaded a pre-QA build by accident - the game executable is literally "Test Release Candidate," so that might not be implausible. The number of in-your-face errors throughout the game is daunting: stuff like "Enemy French units in Morocco have names indicating they're part of 1st Cav." Or just straight up "PLACEHOLDER TEXT" left lying around.

There are also a ton of places where the game's engine feels... off, to the point that it's hard to tell what's bugged and what's just clunky design. Sometimes the camera gets jerked around to show objective locations or scripted artillery shots. Sometimes the objective markers bug out, disappearing or flickering back to different objectives. Sometimes there are indicators for morale checks, sometimes not. Sometimes enemies will shoot back at attacks, sometimes not (which is particularly frustrating when trying to change their facing to help with the infantry charge issue). A few of these I think are RNG dependent, but the UI doesn't make it clear, and that causes frustration.

And finally: some of the colorized images are great. Some are appallingly bad, to the point it's immediately obvious they're AI-"enhanced," and overall the effect is net negative. It would've been better to leave the images in their original format on the grounds of quality alone. Distorting the images that badly also rubs me the wrong way as a historian: if having colorized photos is something the devs wanted to do, then out of respect for the history of those photos it should have been done right. I get that hiring people skilled at colorization and image restoration isn't free, but this is a pretty clear case of "You can either afford it or you can't, don't try to use a budget option."

Not just a game but a way of (army) life!

I fully agree with the recommendations to avoid tips and various spoilers from Youtubers (sorry Historical Gamer). This is all about the journey not the destination, though I would hope to follow the campaign from Africa through to Germany, and come to the war's end alive and undaunted. The game storyline throws up a lot of decisions to make along the way, with suprises and some genuine shocks.

The tactical gameplay is simple enough to learn in bootcamp but throws up challenges when applied in combat. These challenges can only increase as I will come up against stronger enemies. Learning how to defeat the enemy becomes part of the learning experience that a green army company would have to face in reality. So, for instance, learning how best to coordinate my riflemen with heavy weapon fire support is done on the battlefield, and some of my men might die before I get it right (if I ever do). And that's my burden, I suppose.

I really wanted to like this, especialyl when i saw that my unit was represented in the game, but there's jsut something entirely too clunky about it.

I really tried i did, but i can only fail soooooo many 50/50's with initiating assaults with fully rallied, pressed, bolstered, and lt led units with the computer literally sending me messages like " [please read this. you cant suppress them any further.]" whenever i try to suppress them further than red.

i just cnat understand how my slightly olive green unit is struggling to assault a fully red unit on a 50/50. 6, 8, 9 TIMES IN A ROW. the chace wheel on the assault even shows a 5050, but all i get is a order loss and ????.

i get it, combat is hard and shit doesnt go well all the time, but when 3 units surround one squad on red morale actively being suppressed by the MGs, the assault should be better than a 50/50 (failed).

Tutorial videos are ridiculous. Most of the time is listening to a guy try and act funny while slowly going over information that was just relayed moments before. They're so irritatingly bad and not respectful of your time that I don't even see the point of continuing if this is just how the game is going to be.

I agree with its advertisements that you shouldn't buy it, and the title of the game is correct. It's a burden to play.

Genuinely wanted to like and get into this; I often like quite obscure games and have a lot of patience for steep learning curves but this game left me cold.

The graphics are terrible, reminiscent of gaming from the 90s to be honest. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the gameplay was compelling but guess what? It isn't.

Clunky and unintuitive ui and controls generally. I'll be honest, I didn't even make it out of the tutorial but still spent the best part of 2 hours trying to give it a fair shot. At some point I realised it was a resounding no from me.

I'm all for a deep game with lots to learn but to still be in a tutorial after 2 hours (and still not have completed it!!) Is bonkers to me. Include a bloody manual with it or something seriously. What happens in this game is you get constant notes from a/the dev in the form of unskippable videos which often repeat information you have just learned! Irritating is putting it politely. After about 4 of these they just started to feel like interruptions and impositions. I was rolling my eyes a lot. That definitely added to the overall frustration and before long it was a quick alt f4 and refund.

Sorry, wanted to like it but it's about as approachable as a cross eyed, dirt covered, stink exuding, knife wielding beggar with rabies.

For the game that tries to discuss such topics as burden of leading other men in combat or psychological bonds between soldiers it lacks A LOT and is too primitive. First of all, it fails at making gamers care about their subordinates. Who were those guys the gamer lost when sent a squad across the road without cover? Why should he bother? They are just numbers, all "specific" characters with some background and AI generated avatar have plot armor til particular narrative moment.

There is a great wargame series Close Combat that does EVERYTHING a way better. Just with a simple thing. Each soldier there has a name, record of his service, medals, can get promoted or go MIA or KIA during campaign. So you start to recoginze some of them. This generates tons of unique experience, you can see "small men" progressing and earning stripes and merits. That was extremely sad when I found myself in a dire situation when in order to win a scenario I had to sacrifice one of my veteran squads with a MoH receptionist in it. Well that's a real burden of command.

As for gameplay its repetitive and simple as rock: suppress, rally, assault, do it 100x times and win. There are tons of wargames (even Close Combat that was mentioned above) that a way more complex and entertaining.

In the end we get boring story that feels like a mix of everyting we have already seen in Pacific and BoB, stereotypical characters with plot armor, clumsy UI, AI generated art and mediocre repetetive gameplay. At least historical photo and notes are interesting.

Totally dissapointed, wish I went for refund earlier.

The tutorial is too long and tedious. The devs assume someone on Steam looking at the store page of a hex based WWII game has never played a war game in their life.

Also the in tutorial dev videos are condescending and just assume you're a drooling moron who has only ever played something like X-COM.

And another thing - Why is there only one save file for the entire game? I finished the tutorial and made it to right before the first mission in Morocco when I decided to take a break. After coming back to the game I went to "Campaign" instead of "Continue" to check something out. Afterwards I went to continue my campaign but the game autosaved over it with the new one. Because there is only one save file. So if I want to play the game I have to do the wonderful tutorial all over again. The tutorial that takes 2 hours to complete.

I read on the discussion forum that you can skip the tutorial after finishing it the first time, but apparently I didn't make it that far. Sweet.

As someone who frequently buys war games on Steam—only to find 80% of them end up collecting dust—Burden of Command is a rare and exceptional gem. This isn't just a game; it's an experience.

It's the first war game I've played that masterfully blends tactical combat with a gripping narrative that feels like reading a powerful war novel. And the best part? The story isn't static—it changes based on how you lead your men in battle. Every decision, every success, every mistake—it all matters.

The boot camp missions do a good job introducing the mechanics, but don’t be fooled: nothing prepares you for the first burst of enemy fire. In those early missions, you’ll likely screw up. You’re supposed to. This game is about learning, adapting, becoming a better commander—not through tutorials, but through the painful trial of war. And there's no save-scumming here. Win or lose, you live with the outcome. Yet even in defeat, your squads gain experience, grow, and carry their scars forward.

I have immense respect for the developers. This is clearly not some cash-grab from a faceless studio. These devs have done their homework. You can tell they’ve read the history books—not just to simulate WW2, but to honor it. This are big KUDOS to the veterans who bore the real burden of command.

In the end, this game captures something truly unique: the emotional weight of leadership in war. You’re not just pushing units on a map—you’re making life-and-death calls. Men will die. Sometimes you'll win. Sometimes you'll lose. But you'll keep going, because that's what leaders do.

This is the Burden of Command.

Plain and simple, it's just not fun.
I understand the devs reasoning for this kind of gameplay, but the game would have been better served as just a narrative game instead of a narrative then really boring/repetitive "tactical" gameplay.
So, when you shoot your guns, you will almost never get a kill, which the dev says is normal... which I disagree with a lot, but also, the enemy doesn't seem to also fall into that category.
You cannot win any fights, you HAVE you get them to lose all their morale, then you have to RUN YOUR GUYS INTO THE ENEMY TO FORCE THEM TO SURRENDER.
Listen, I get it, war isn't just "Pew pew pew" as he says, but also war isn't just "Everyone misses every bullet so now you need to run up to the enemy and tell them to surrender nicely". I mean, it's not logical, it's not "real world" as the dev states, and its' boring as hell.
The amount of turns I had to wait because my leader sgt and his group wouldn't run over and force a surrender one block away, literally adjacent, and no matter how many times I bolstered, or rallied, my guys were too scared to "rush" (They are literally touching) the machine gun nest. So two turns later they finally rush over the machine gun position.
This is the game, literally, you shoot - make their morale go red, then run your guys up and "Charge them" to force them to surrender. If you try doing any damage or anything with shooting - you will fail.
Now, put that into the weird way the dev is saying he is keeping in some really gruesome photos, because war is gruesome, but then uses AI to.. I guess add color? That isn't it either, almost every photo has something big or small that has changed, which makes me wonder if it's not a copyright type of thing. One of the officers hands was literally long straw like a scarecrow.
If you want a game like this, I would recommend going the route of the game "All Quiet In The Trenches" which is also a narrative game, but the non-narrative part is actually fun. This game here probably would have done better in the WW1 era... where soldiers actually charged each other more, this isn't something that really happens in WW2...

OH! I almost forgot, the game runs terribly. Like seriously, this game has no real graphics, and almost every step they have to take where the game "Calculates" if you are getting blown away by accurate fire that only exists on the enemies side, those calculations can take SO LONG. From counting, it's roughly 5 to 10 seconds long... and before anyone jumps on the whole "Hardware issue" I have a really expensive computer, with the AMD 9800X3D along with the fastest gen 5 m.2s I can get my hands on. and 64GB of RAM. It's not hardware. :P

I will say this: I like the premise of what this game is trying to accomplish. I like that they try to engage your attention and emotions with your units. Even more so, I am very intrigued with the individual systems they are utilizing to ensure that you are immersed into the role of playing a commander out in the field with their troops. For this alone, I hope they succeed. However, the truth is that the game is very much in a rough state.

The tutorial is an absolute slog and needs better guidance for the player. Nothing about how it is laid out is cohesive or well integrated within the game. You are constantly being pulled out of the scenario into a "dev explains mechanics" video like it's a director's cut. They explain all the systems, but they don't guide the player in a smooth way visually, audibly, or passively. I felt constantly lost on where I was and where any of the interactions with the systems were within the game space.

Even worse, the aforementioned systems seem to be competing with each other. For example, I like the idea of constantly embedding and detaching your commander with your squads in order to better and more efficiently lead your units through a scenario for a more "boots on the ground" experience. However, when the tutorial tells you the optimal way to separate them is to repeatedly click on the commander portrait until only the commander is selected, it becomes painfully clear that these systems have not been executed in a way that "plays nice with each other". Nothing about how this package of systems' initial set up is intuitive, and the controls for utilizing them feels restrictive in that you have to follow these exact steps or you risk an outcome you didn't want.

holy crap the tutorial is a miserable slog. you can see how this game struggled to come up with its concepts and languished in development limbo for so long. it's a lot of thought but into it but not enough clear thinking. i have lots of patience for learning complex systems but the video format is a mixture of self-indulgence of the developer showing off his thinking, which simply isn't necessary - unity of command or grigsby's games convey very very complex design and its philosophy via the UX, pop-up, or by a well-documented manual without constantly intruding and making you listen to the sound of dev's voice.

they could have simply reduced all of these concepts down to a well-written manual, but that would have required a discipline in the production process that i suspect was lacking given the game's long development history. the tutorial is a bewildering mix of pop-ups, video intrusions, and fleeting graphics. i was a big fan of the concept of the game and of paul wang, but as a working adult my time is too precious to spend on a game this self-important. i hope they listen to review feedback and decide to come up with a real tutorial that respect's the player's time and attention.

Great idea two in one package a War game and what is an interesting Novel come R P G, I have really enjoyed playing this game so much and also watching the true Heroes telling me what real War was all about a true Bonus to see. The game it's self is played well for me you have to study the tutelaries and play them a few times then all the new type of play style for this game comes together, I always like to play a new angle on a turn based war game I have now reached quite far into the Campaign and the game seems to run OK for me with no problems so far on my MSI GF75 THIN 95C Laptop about 5 years old by now, obviously there is a lot of hope for future scenarios from other areas of WW2 to look forward too. all in all I RECOMMEND this game for lovers of turn based war games and maybe some R T S players as well should try it too, well done to the develpers on trying new game system it's fresh and works well in my apinion keep inventing.

It is the best VN I have played in years. The tutorial is very painful, though. Besides that, it's the visual novel/RPG of the Band of Brother genre you did not know you needed.

I don't usually leave reviews for games before i finish them nor do I leave reviews that are thought out at all but this game compelled me to do so. Now Ive played a lot of WW2 turn based games and this one does something pretty different. its no where near as complex as one of the Gary Grigsby games but It has a pretty good story. I think that the combat for this game is okay, not amazing but I havent started to fight Germans yet so thats likely why the game feels like "Shoot at enemy until theyre cowering then assault said enemy" and if youre lucky sometimes you shoot a unit and they all just die which can be nice cause if you kill a lieutenant his Units are basically dead in the water. Now id say if you want a purely strategic game you should just go play panzercorp, unit of command, strategic command, strategic mind or any of the other 100 puzzle esq WW2 games.

Now where I think this game really shines is with its story telling, I think it does a very good job at making you feel like youre leading a company. Youre constantly having to deal with little events during missions such as trying to get armored support or trying to get the Damn Navy to stop bombing you and civilians. Ive also had cutscenes happen where all of a sudden a character just gets shot in the middle of a mission and I have to decide between sending my men away to try and keep the soldier alive or keeping the men with me so i have a better chance at winning the scenario. Now there are a few small things that have felt kind of weird like having my character be on the otherside of the map from another character then all of a sudden I get a cutscene where the two are talking or how the enemy tend to be crack shots, I had 4 men get shot down by an italian rifle team 5ish hexes away with bushes and such inbetween them while my guys run from one trenchline to another. I do really think the story telling is quite enjoyable and interactive and I think thats where this shines.

Now an issue ive seen other people have is with the tutorial. I do think the game goes a little far to say theyve reinvented the wheel with how they approach combat. A lot of the mechanics feel very similar to how other games work, I mean its different then other squad based games where each unit acts individually and shoots at enemies and kills them but this game focuses on squad on squad combat and not individual combat. When you play a game like Unity of command you have a tendency to lay fire down on an enemy and then send a unit in to finish them off kind of similar to this though that game requires a lot more Supply management and you tend to win by cutting off supply lines but they focus on different levels of war. sorry a little bit of a ramble. I think if they cut down on a lot of the hand holding in the tutorial then it would make it better cause I do like the bootcamp aspect of the game I think it adds another level of authenticity to the experience. These men would train together before they were deployed and starting at that point is refreshing since typically you're just thrust into the attack on Poland or America landing in Morocco and just run with it from there.

The game is like a choose your own adventure book with a decent strategical game added to it and I quite enjoy how they put it all together. I really do hope they improve on some of the more jank side of things, Units take too long to move around and the game takes too long to calculate attacks and such for a game released in 2025. Im excited to see them add more campaigns, Especially a Pacific one since thats one of my favorite theaters. I think this type of story telling would also work pretty well for a WW1 game which there are a definite lack of when it comes to tactical strategy games. If you read all this well thanks, i guess, Like i said I dont usually write reviews so this probably reads like a bit of a ramble. I think its good and I think its worth a try. 20~25 Bucks is pretty cheap for a WW2 strategy game too, I think all the other ones I listed in here are 40+ bucks other then Unity of Command.

To start, I like this game. I really do. I think there is a lot of promise in it. But right now it needs a lot of work.
The hardness selection screen I think summs everything up. Do you want a story, or a fight?

Unfortunately right now you cant choose. Its all story. The tutorial I'm about 5 hrs in, and still not done. Every other move, breaks into dialog or a how-to. JUST LET ME PLAY THE GAME!!!

I love the stories, honestly. But put them at the end of the mission, or the briefing at the beginning. Dont stop gameplay in the middle. That or if you are going to correct my mistakes, let me redo the mission so I can make sure I've learned what you are trying to teach me. Im sure plenty of folks dont like the stories. So allow them to be turned off. You have that nice selector at the beginning of the game, USE IT as its described.

Another big thing is the whole leader swap control. I'm lost. Maybe its me. But Ive 2 LTs, a Capt and I cant move anything because Im using the wrong leader. Just designate which unit requires which leader, and let me move. That or give me a caution "un played moves" or unplayed leader or soemthing. Im htting turn advance thinking Ill get to the leader I need to be on to action a unit. NOPE Its next turn. WAAAAAA I've lost 2 missions now due to this, trying to get everyone perfect, but cant mesh the leaders to cmd each.

Otherwise some annoying save/quit bugs. I "finished" moved on to a movie, couldn't exit out to shut down my computer. Ended up just killing the program (Yay TaskManager did something for once). EDIT: So picking back up I think it killed the mission briefing. And now Ive no idea what my objectives are. Need a way to be able to replay objectives/briefing/etc.

Also feel like MG & Mortar fire needs to have more casualties. I'm using them every turn. Rarely ever get a kill. Had this group full red suppressed multiple rounds MG, Mortar, & Rifles, go to assault, half my assault team dies. Lose the loyalty bonus for that.

I'm sure Ill edit this as the game goes on. But ya. It needs work.

PS Theres a ton of folks complaining about the price of USD$20. Be happy its not 80. Look at everyone complaining about the new mario switch 2 game pricing. I think 20 is perfect. I picked it up specifically because it was 20.

I don't usually leave reviews but seeing as only a few are needed to help out the game, I don't mind voicing some thoughts. My attraction came primarily from one of the writers on the team, whose other work I've enjoyed, and I am so far not disappointed. My main interest lies, unsurprisingly, in the writing and the characterisation of our Company at large, and the way it interacts with the war. The gameplay is passable, but is elevated by being a vehicle for the story; your 'chance' of succeeding in an assault being related to your unit's morale, which you can follow the rises and falls of and try to learn from them, is a nice twist. Advancing where you think an enemy might have sightlines and elevation is a bad idea, maybe fall back and go around, etc. It's rare that I feel like I'm being punished for no reason. Even in situations where the map and enemy positioning seems to have no real way forward without taking damage, there's usually a way of opening yourself up to better your position if you think about it.

Anything I could directly complain about feeling underutilized in the gameplay element feels like it's just an effect of my playstyle more than anything else. And while yes, the UI's lacking is likely a result of the cost and scope of the development, I would enjoy some kind of indication of which enemy's line of sight I'm heading into when they're effectively on overwatch. It's perfectly possible with guesswork, but not the ideal.

Having played the Demo and now the full game, I can certainly see where people are coming from on their points about the tutorial. The video not 100% relating to what's happening, let alone showing its example in a different scenario; sometimes text in the text box, sometimes text in the image box, sometimes relevant to what's being said, sometimes not. The near first thing you're told is about is the four Fs, but I can't actually remember being told what all of them stood for until I read it on a loading screen tooltip in the middle of Morocco. It feels like it was made at a different stage of development than the finished product—perhaps replacing the videos with new ones, of the same developer going through the actual tutorial itself? Its length is a byproduct of the story and the gameplay being one and the same, but short of divorcing the tutorial and bootcamp into two separate entities, I can't see that changing. For good or ill.

Insofar as that being my biggest issue, it's not much of one personally, since by the end of the early-release Demo, I was already captured and not being dissuaded from seeing the story to fruition. While not everyone who buys the game is going to like it, if some are turned off by what might as well be teething problems, that'd be a shame.

Hopefully that doesn't come off as too 'negative' for a positive review. I like the game, and I love the writing, and I'm satisfied when my platoon storms a bunker and seizes the objective against the odds. I just hope that it helps the devs attract some people who're beyond this niche of interest, or being turned away by that first hurdle.

The tutorial was heavy, but once you get in the mindset that the narrator is trying to put you in - that of a wet-behind-the-ears officer being briefed to lead men into combat - it comes together nicely. I found myself sipping my coffee along with the Lt. and feeling the same nervous anticipation of what was to come during the first briefing.

I'd suggest that if you can't get into the right headspace, to put the game down for a while and come back to it. It tightens up BIG time once you emotionally invest in your role and your men.

I'm glad I stuck with it, and I look back at the tutorial differently than I did when I was playing it.

I picked this game up on launch and agree with other reviewers that the training can be something of a slog. It's a solid 2 hour minimum of videos and tutorials before dropping you into the campaign (but it does cover all the bases and give you a solid foundation before you go into combat in North Africa) but once you pass the training the gameplay really does begin to shine.

The campaign is a mix of a turn-based strategy and a choose-your-own adventure with dialogue between (and frequently during) missions impacting relationships with characters and your tactical choices. Want to send runners to bring up tank support quicker? You'll have your armour early, but you'll be down a squad for the first half of the mission because of it and the other platoon leaders might be unhappy knowing their men have to pick up the slack for it.

Dialogue choices are also decided by your characters doctrine (Essentially their mindset regarding combat I.E, By the book, Cautious, Zealous and aggressive etc) and choices that alter your mental stats. You can be more or less direct, professional and sarcastic which means after a couple of missions of me being a no-humour and relatively quiet officer my dialogue options quite often resorted to bland statements or just the use of body language which is exactly what I wanted, although it did annoy other officers when they would ask a question and I'd nod or point instead of speaking.

Now with regards to the campaign, the first missions can be a tactical nightmare to overcome but a recurring theme in the North Africa campaign in the game, as in real life, is that the US military was not prepared to go to war and had to learn on the fly. Your squads will frequently get pinned and need to be rallied by their officer to advance, they'll move less hexes on their turn and take fewer actions and your officers will struggle to have the actions to engage all their squads on their turns. But as you fight further and further across North Africa you will find your officers developing and your men becoming veterans capable of fighting longer and harder.

Finally, this brings me to the last gameplay feature: Stress and combat fatigue. As you participate in battles and dialogue your character and the other officers will all accumulate combat fatigue. If an officer is assigned to write a letter home regarding some of his dead men or has a harrowing experience in combat then he can gain combat fatigue, this limits the amount of actions he can take unless it is dealt with by resting them, but losing them for their next mission. Stress is a similar feature but more prominent during gameplay as it occurs during battle and not afterwards unlike combat fatigue. As your men are engaged, lead assaults or take casualties they build up stress (stress can also result from killing the enemy instead of forcing them to surrender). Stress makes them less effective and can even result in them flat out refusing dangerous orders. If you have a veteran unit that is tasked with dangerous jobs they will become stressed quickly and the only way to reduce this is to pull them off the line for a mission or two, resulting in you being without some of your best men and down a squad in their next combat.

Overall, despite some minor issues such as the training and some poor quality AI enhancements on some of the images I have very very much enjoyed my time in game so far. The pacing and missions are good and maintaining relationships and the mental and physical health of my squad has been extremely enjoyable also, I'd recommend this to anyone who is a fan of hex or turn based strategy.

I’m giving this game a positive review.

It’s a niche, indie title—definitely not for everyone—but I love the idea of mixing a choose-your-own-adventure style game with a tactical RPG. The mechanics themselves are quite simple, but in my opinion, the UI makes them feel more difficult than they actually are.

The story is a slow burner. While some players complain about the long tutorial, I actually enjoy it and want to experience more. The saving system still annoys me, but I understand that it’s meant to simulate being a leader of soldiers—when you rush in and make a stupid mistake in real life, you can’t just reload. In the meantime ill try to start from the beginnign to grasp the mechanics (also I am a terrible tactician).

Worth a try for sure!"

I played through the demo and actually recommended it to a personal friend for game design things (he was working on a TTRPG wargame and was trying to conceptualize the leader as a independent unit and this game handles that particular concept in a interesting way) and we both came to a similar conclusion of interesting ideas, rough execution. I made it all the way though the demo and walked away optimistic where he tapped out after a bit due to the tutorials not being the greatest.

I came back to full release hoping that the game had seen some needed QOL improvements. It honestly has not from what I can tell. I have to say conceptually I'm interested but the overly long tutorial and honestly lack lustre presentation turns me off. I'm not even talking about graphics to be transparent here. So much of the tooltips and UI feels placeholder and it's strange. Even the settings menu doesn't really work like it should (muting master volume still resulted in very loud unit barks when selected and the videos still played full blast with their very crisp audio).

(TLDR) I genuinely believe a lot of love and effort went into this game. I can tell by the developers response they wanted this to succeed and for people to see their vision. I see the vision but I unfortunately do not see the needed polish to execute, the game feels like there was too many designers coming up with great concepts and not enough programmers to execute if that makes any sense.

I bought the game because I love the interactive fiction written by one of the main writers of this game (go check out Sabres, Guns, and Lords of Infinity). The game-play component is definitely jankey at times but I appreciate that this is an indie studio doing a unique thing. I'm in this for the writing and I'm not disappointed. I think it succeeds at its main goal: making you care about the men you lead and their ultimate fate in the war.

Firstly, thank you and well done to the developers for creating such a fitting tribute to our US allies' soldiers during WWII. I know a labour of love when I see it. It’s a WWII experience as much as it is a game. The use of real veterans' voices adds authenticity.
I remember seeing an intriguing Rock Paper Shotgun article about a game capturing the idea of the burden of command a few years ago, and was surprised to see it release yesterday. I gave the game a chance and, while it isn’t perfect, I’m generally impressed.

This isn’t a game for everyone and I think the developers have been clear about that. It’s a journey into what it means to lead others during warfare, and if you appreciate that, you will likely enjoy the game.

As other reviews have already mentioned, the tutorial approach is marmite. Somehow, it’s both overly long and handholding, yet at the same time fails to get some of the key points across. On the upside, the tutorial feels quite a lot like military basic training, which can be equally confusing and contradictory. It’s easy to think you’ve pressed a command and then left click rather than right click and make a mistake I found. I watched the launch dev stream where he made similar mistakes so this seems to be an issue that could be corrected. Some Of The On Screen Manual Pages That Capitalise The First Letter Of Every Word need rewriting too.

The Field Umpire (or Exercise Directing Staff over here in the UK) did make me smile, I’m sure most veterans have met that special individual during training exercises, “Lt Einstein” indeed, cheeky git. “Train hard, fight easy”, as they say.
The main gameplay loop follows realistic infantry patterns. You can read more about that in the game, but I’ll summarise it as find the enemy, pin them down to reduce their spirit, flank them, finish them up close. Suppressing the enemy along with the rally and bolster commands is more essential than in other similar WWII turn-based games. Line of sight is critical too, but that’s the same across many similar RTS and turn-based military games. Move your squads up together, suppress, flank, (rally if needed) and win the encounter, rinse and repeat.

I do like the ear symbol and notification when an enemy officer is issuing orders nearby, nice touch that.
The game does a good job of driving the need for balance between achieving the task and considering the team. It doesn’t quite create the connection to the individual soldiers that I’d like to have seen. I want to know who my squad are too, have a say in their promotions and understand their lives. Currently, the non-commissioned soldiers feel too expendable. The now very old system of tank crew management and promotion from M1 Tank Platoon has still to be bettered in that regard.

The impact of the junior officers (Lt and Capt) seems somewhat generous. They are all a bit too much Henry V (the original St Crispin Day ‘band of brothers’ speech) as motivators with bolster and rally - especially the Capt. In my experience, a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of the morale and fighting spirit of the men is really the domain of the NCOs (see the film Zulu and role of Colour Sgt Bourne (“And a bayonet, sir, with some guts behind it”) vs the junior officers in charge of the more technical elements of the defence. The written script gives the senior NCOs more credit, but they are oddly absent from the actual gameplay.

Does the game capture the ‘Burden of Command’? Mostly, it does, with the real combat reports, photos and veterans’ video clips adding to the atmosphere. It does have the feel of ‘look after your men and they’ll look after you’. Few modern games manage this, and the team should be congratulated for that.

Slightly janky with a dash of genius is my summary. If you want an experience that is respectful to WWII veterans and is truthful about the cost of warfare, this is it. You’ll need to be a little forgiving of some of the less polished elements of gameplay.

Different, creative, respectful and on the whole enjoyable; for that reason, Burden of Command gets a positive recommendation.

It's been 10 years since I first heard of it... well, it is finally here.

A company sized tactical game, operates closer to a wargame than other turn based games. Scenarios are interesting, and a tad difficult, but not impossible. In any case, is more about surviving through it than completing all of it. I find the combat system quite enjoyable, although the UI doesn't telegraph very well if what I am bout to do is what I actually want to do.

Story so far, good as well, very much on the same tone and topics such as Band of Brothers. I love the fact that it takes a good chunk of it in parts of the conflict that are not overused in games. For now, I'm still playing Op. Torch, but the game will also take place in Italy. I can tell there was an effort to explain certain concepts without overindulging in military terms that might not be so friendly for people not versed on them, neither bloats artificially the narrative. The RPG aspects are quite unique with this theme, and I love it.

Tutorial... well, that was a though pill to swallow, but necesary. Even if you are familiar with the idea, the execution needs to be put in practice with the game mechanics. Of course the training part is an inherent part of the story, and works well in that aspect.

By the art and some mechanical choices, you can tell the game was made by people that is really invested in the project, and knows what they want to convey. Love the coloured photos and portraits, but not so much the sumi-e photoshop filter (that actually for a moment made me think that it was AI generated stuff... and I can't rule it out 100%). Sometimes the game breaks conventions, which is great actually; but sometimes it is just something not directly related to the context. Sometimes, footnotes are other images... well, that's confusing, but I can see where it comes from. There are a couple of explicit images that, while I am not agains't them, they made me think if was that image really necessary in that context. No additional information was conveyed, no tragedy in context... just a bit of gore in a close up.

Also, music and sound, great stuff. Accompanies the text very well, and makes combat quite punchy. Tiles, animations and destruction are great too.

The only thing that really don't like, is how the crucible stuff doesn't relay the information at all. I can get feedback from tooltips when making choices, but I don't have a clear view, at any moment, of where I stand extactly. If something is explained through values and not narration, I should be able to check what is the status at any given time. This can be extended to fatigue and character traits ( sarcasm, direct, verbal, etc.).

By the way. I feel the price is right, as it is now with discount, 19,60€. I would think twice about it if it was just 5€ more.

Also, documentation and references! Great stuff! Thank you!

Overall great indie game. Congrats devs, after all this time, you've made it, and it's very good.

Leaving my first every Steam review to counteract some of the early negativity I'm seeing, particularly given this is an indy developer. This is a game that is greater than the sum of it's parts. It's taking you on a journey, and the bootcamp is part of that (I agree it could be slightly more streamlined, but I found the latter stages very useful to PRACTICE). It's not a save scumming, perfect run kind of game and I'm enjoying that narrative approach.

This game is a very interesting idea. I actually love one of the authors of this game from his days back as a "choose your own adventure" novelist. (shout out to the real ones who know Mecha Ace & Guns of Infinity) but they front-loaded a painfully over-explained tutorial. they make you do the action and then they tell you what it is you just did after. almost an hour in and I have zero plot. at least get me invested on the narrative side before you bombard me with your obtuse game mechanics. I look forward to what this team makes next and I wish them all the best, but this aint it im sorry.

I feel crappy for having to say "don't recommend" as this game does have some good potential, and there's a lot of cool things within that really make you vibe with the setting, the characters, and at times the gameplay. Honestly, it's a really well written game story wise, as you're put in command of a platoon of troops starting first with basic training and moving up from there... but sadly, therein is the problem... the Bootcamp.

I'd love to say the Tutorial was fun and engaging, but it really really wasn't. Half the time you're interrupted by a video from the developer explaining how the game works, which is fine if you weren't already a veteran Hex-based strategy gamer, or just anyone above the age of 10 and below the age of 60. It was jarring, and their warning as you first skip the video is... made me wonder who tested the game cause it was easier to understand the mechanics through just the quick summary text that popped up minus a few keybind commands. But yeah, overall, the bootcamp part is what really made me find the game annoying, as it just kept pulling me out of the immersion. One moment, I'm getting into the head of my character and his unit then BAM suddenly a video comes up with a guy explaining the mechanics which pulls me right out of it. I'd petition to add in a feature to opt out of the videos.

Now, the other part that was... annoying, was how inconsistent the difficulty felt at times, as though you're basically rolling a D20 and landing on nothing but nat 1's all the damn time, while the enemy AI keeps getting nat 20's, completely destroying your force, and further removing any sort of element of fun like other hex and strategy based games. Then, there are options which give you a small bump in either time or some other aspect like an extra machine gun, an artillery bombardment, lower enemy morale (doesn't do anything I found), and remove the fog of war. The latter two are just useless choices. You're presented with a fun script where your officers and NCO's tell you what they found, but once you start the game, you're immediately greeted with no enemy locations on map aside from some hard point hexes (which isn't terrible) but little else. Then, the morale check immediately vanishes once you move a unit up to spot them, rendering your prep time useless.

Overall, I have to say this game is... meh. It's got some really cool elements like the narrative "chose your own adventure" type of thing, but the customization of the OC (you) is just lacking entirely (Can't fit my whole name in there XD) as you're unable to pick much save for 4 avatars, and much the same with your squads. Essentially, I'd recommend waiting until they've FULLY ironed out a lot of the issues. As it stands, the game is quite painful to play through if you have bad luck like me, cause no amount of tactical brilliance will help you unless you're lucky as well in this game XD.

I hate to not recommend this. I had it on my wish list for years and it randomly came out today, but wow is it underwhelming! The tutorial is pretty much over 2 hours if you sit and read everything and watch the little videos that pop up every 3 minutes of game play. Some images look authentic but a lot of them look AI generated. They try to play it off like this is some revolutionary game, which in fairness the concept is a great idea the execution is just not there. I also don't like how they have to reiterate stuff that I think the average gamer and WW2 or war enjoyer should probably already know. You're average Joe isnt tryna pick up this game only the WW2 nerds are. Its really not as RPG as I thought it would be its a simple point and click your units with simple action point mechanics and your officers can order them to do simple things like suppress or move or bolster or rally. The customization of your own character is kind of lack luster you can change your name and have 3 different portraits to choose from. If it was 10 bucks I would recommend it, but for $25 USD (I got it for $20 on sale) Its just not fun and its really boring. I refunded it because I really dont see myself finishing it. TBF I heard that they would be adding different countries you could play for as an infantry officer but who knows, Idk if they used AI or not but im not the only one who has pointed it out in the reviews. Sorry Devs I really wanted to like this but its just not fun or ground breaking like its marketed to be!

I haven't given the game much playtime yet, but so far, I love the mix of "choose your own adventure" and tactical combat.
It really feels like Band of Brothers: the tactical game so far, with its nagging drill sergent.
The tutorial was a bit awkward, though, with a mix of excessive hand holding at times and hazardous decisions to take at other times.
I like how you typically have to choose to favour your soldiers(by playing it safe) or the HQ (by zipping as quickly as possible through the mission). It fees like everything comes at a cost.
You can even piss your instructor off early on in the tutorial by not doing what he is asking and winning an encounter that was scripted to end in a draw by assaulting the enemy position instead of suppressing it first and running out of time.

I'll update the review once I get more time clocked.

I was super intrigued by this but wow. This feels like a TTRPG player just decided to make a video game without ever having played one. The UI/UX is super inconsistent and jarring. In 34 minutes playing, all that happened was I got like 100 tutorials in a row on how to move units, same info being constantly repeated at you. There are in-game tool tip tutorials that were totally sufficient, but the game then also cuts away to full screen dialogue with random historical images shown to you while the game goes on and on about very simple mechanics. The game explains grids, action points, units, etc. to you as if they are all radical new concepts never before seen in tactical turn based games and over and over. 95% of the gameplay was just clicking through tutorial dialogue. The tutorial was also very buggy, you could do as you pleased but the game would just assume what actions you had taken and give you story dialogue related to it. There are also constantly these videos played where the Lead Designer goes on and on about these "game design" features while verbosely explaining very standard turn based tactical game mechanics like movement, abilities, action points, terrain, etc. Seemingly no way to undo actions once you queue them.

Also for a game that seems to be very focused on narrative and immersion, the choice of random historical items that are completely out of time and place is just very very weird (tutorial takes place in Virginia in 1942, you are fighting free french troops, your "kitchen squad's" leader is a FSSF guy from Italy 1944, very routinely you get shown images from WW1 instead of contemporary ones).

Honestly, it could just be the tutorial that is so jarring and messed up, full of these random pop up videos and weird dialogue, I could probably tolerate the weird UI, but the first 30 minutes just left such a bad impression I just can't go for this. You also constantly get dialogue and pop ups telling you the videos were well liked and recommended by playtesters which just seems like the lead designer is a narcissist trying to justify including them because there is no way anyone thinks constantly having autoplaying videos pop up where he agonizingly slowly describes basic game features is a good addition.