Lead Your Troops in Intense Real-Time Battles with Men of War 2

Are you ready to engage the warfare action in full throttle? Men of War 2 is the long-time expected sequel in the renowned RTS franchise and it is now available, since the Men of War 2 release date was just mere weeks ago on 15th of May 2024.

It is coming equipped with a wide range of all-new military units, distinct locations, dynamic campaigns, and awesome game modes that have been merged within the series’ emblematic historical accuracy and realistic gameplay style on both the Eastern and Western Fronts of the World War II period.

In this review we are going to start with a brief overview of Men of War 2 for those that just want the basics before delving into more details of what the game has to offer. Even though we would like to focus on the positives only, we would have to mention some of the things we would like to see improved upon by the devs at Best Way and Fulqrum Publishing so that the game shines even brighter as soon as possible.

So, get ready to dive into action and build your strategy as best as you can, because we are going to storm the enemy lines and see what the title has got to offer!

Experience the familiar formula with a few tweaks.

The Men of War 2 gameplay is broadly speaking very much the same based on the already established franchise formula just like it was for Men of War Assault Squads 2, coming complete with third and first person direct control modes, but with some changes here and there.

The graphics are quite decent but the main strength of the title lies in the great number of different game modes, from PVE to PVP there are many different types of dynamic campaigns and absolutely everything can be played with up to four friends in a convenient and if preferred custom matchmaking system.

There is greater flexibility in the settings that enables you to truly tailor the experience to your liking from a slightly detailed one to a brutal and much more realistic experience with minimal HUD presence on the screen, making it possible to overview bigger parts of the terrain much more easily but at the cost of having to navigate your troops with more difficulty.

Get to play as different factions and experience their perspective on WWII.

This time there are only three main factions - the Germans, Soviets and Americans and some of their most iconic moments based on historical events are included in the gameplay. You may need to defend or invade depending on the side of events you pick, so be prepared to experience both positions in the complex conflicts that typically take place during the Men of War series.

Whatever your pick is, it is absolutely certain that you would get authentic weapons, equipment and units to control across the battlefront, since the level of accuracy is quite high as per usual and you would have a great time playing with any of the fractions and their unique abilities and attributes.

Make sure to explore the different roles such as Artillery and Armor to Infantry and even Support units. Troops can navigate the map in different ways and depending on your strategy you could choose to go by foot and remain a bit more stealthier or rush the frontline directly with your available vehicles and ride on the back of tanks or trucks as you approach your opponent’s parts of the map.

Even though the AI may not the greatest the Men of War series has to offer, it does perform comparatively well within the difficulty you select, but the unit pathfinding could be quite difficult to navigate at times and they would take some time to get used to as the troops might choose to go through the most direct route to their destination and that could easily expose them to enemy fire. Make sure to think about your next moves carefully and thread with caution if you wish to evade the sudden death of your soldiers.

The units do have visible HP which has always been the case in previous games too and you can still disable the different turrets or kill individual crew members and even potentially conquer and use the tank for yourself if necessary. Having said all of this, we can go onto the different modes that the game has to offer.

The various Men of War 2 game mechanics and modes to explore.

If you enjoyed Men of War Assault Squad 2 you are definitely going to like the Men of War 2 steam release as it does offer many upgrades over previous titles and is still very “fresh from the oven” as a release with lots of potential for improvements still ahead. For the time being you have to be online and connected to a server at all times even in single player mode, which could be a bit of a issue for many players out there, but we do know for certain that the developers have already confirmed they are actively working to resolve this and are going to introduce an offline mode very soon in the near future.

From a purely technical standpoint and when you add the vast number of ways you could play either alone or with up to four other players Men of War 2 offers you with a huge quantity and flexibility and therefore does deliver a more authentic and immersive feeling for the World War II experience.

Let's now delve into the various game modes because there certainly are many, each offering a slightly different gameplay type:

First we start with the classic storytelling RTS campaign that easily throws many other titles in the genre on the back burner. You are able to play through a set of six missions as the Soviets and it is a total blast that you could be taking part in the biggest tank battle in history ever! There are also six missions for the American faction and another six missions as the Germans, with the events happening during the last year of the World War II conflict.

In total each of these 18 missions have the option to be quite long but it all depends on your individual approach and the difficulty level setting with a number of ways that you can immerse yourself in each level ranging from taking direct control of a soldier or a squad to specific tactics such as throwing objects at the enemy from your cover in the distance to relentlessly bombarding the same position with artillery and then simply send in the tanks to finish off any survivors with just a click of the mouse.

Then we got the Historical campaigns that offer a lot of replay value too as they are very intense and dynamic. Here you can go through another seven missions as the Soviets during the Belarusian offensive or a set of seven missions for the Americans in “Operation Overlord” that was launched on 6th of June 1944 (a.k.a. D-day) with the Normandy landings in occupied France. There are also a variety of mission styles from sneaky sabotage to massive battles and six bonus non-dynamic missions to play as the German faction as well.

You can unlock different battalions while you progress focusing on either of the main infantry, armored or artillery setups and you would gain experience and currency which could then be spent between the missions in order to obtain other more powerful units from a broad tech tree, so that you could enhance your battalion type for the upcoming missions and even customize your three echelons that would be deployed in the next phase of the campaign.

The following Dynamic campaign modes are more into randomly mixing and matching maps, game modes and various objectives to deliver a much more unique experience each time you decide to play them.

In the Combat sectors mode the map is divided into multiple sectors that must be captured and defended from enemy attacks.

The Area control mode is a hybrid game type where you must capture both points and territory on the map thus determining the front line.

Then we got the classic Men of War mode Mechanic combat which showcases a large-scale battle between two of the sides in the conflict. Victory would be given and granted to the team that is able to destroy more of the enemy troops while at the same time preserving most of their own important units intact.

Clashing armies is a variant of the game in which the primary objective is to take control over the enemy territory, however instead of going in battles against a defensive type AI there is an infinite stream of AI infantry units that is going to rush towards the front line aggressively charging into the other team's territory as much as possible. Whenever any AI soldier falls dead a new one would spawn in the back and immediately gets sent to the frontline.

In the asymmetric Incursion game mode one team must capture a few designated zones that are in control of the opposing team and once a zone gets conquered it disappears. This means that Team A is always on the attack side while Team B is always going to be defending their zone for as long as they can hold the attacks.

It is also worth it to cover the many Skirmish modes; you will experience within the campaigns that mix up the objectives.

The first one we have here is the basic Frontline mode which entails both sides to constantly deploy infantry in order to advance a literal front line to capture enemy territory, resulting in a constant tug of war type of experience with AI controlled defensive troops included.

There is one more front-line Skirmish type that does not feature the defensive troops controlled by AI it is named Assault zones in which the opposing sides would face off in a battle to conquer and hold control over strategic points on the map so that they earn enough points to achieve victory.

As you may have already noticed there are lots of versions based on the same ongoing theme within the Men of War series. In Conquest there is a dynamic game that takes place on a randomly generated map where you would have to take turns to attack and defend, strategically navigating your infantry, armored units, artillery and focused divisions across the map similar to a board game so that you effectively defend your territorial gains.

There is a total of four separate dynamic Conquest campaigns two going on at the Eastern front and two happening on the Western Front played as either the Soviets, Americans or Germans, again paired with different types of technology to unlock and even a deck building experience as you may purchase new troops to reform your echelons for the next battles.

Another dynamic campaign is coming in the form of Raid with its series of 16 randomly generated missions across another four different campaigns. That is a total of 16 missions for each campaign with again two separate campaigns on the Western Front and two on the Eastern front coming with various technology options to be unlocked, but in this mode you do not have a pre-formed battalion.

You would have to construct your very own forces and manage with the randomized objectives that may be a mix of different modes such as Frontline with capture points and randomly set objectives to eliminate the enemy sharpshooters or to get a randomized setup each time, but not getting any of the narrative-driven storyline from the historical events and the board game experience of the Conquest campaign.

Try out the multiplayer features and options with up to 4 of your friends.

It is possible to play Battalions in both PVP or PVE and the mode aims for a 5v5 experience. Basically, it is a large-scale battle mode where multiple commanders have control over different troop types within the battalion's experience. You are going to find pretty much all of the game modes mentioned previously but in a shared experience with other friends.

It's a fun mode similar to the gigantic battles in Steel Division 2 where the less aggressive players could potentially take a back seat with the powerful artillery carefully picking their targets in order to support their teammates, while at the same time camouflaging and moving their artillery in a game quite similar to a chase. This mode would require specializations for teamwork with a variety of skirmish mode objectives.

Classic PVP is up to 3v3 and you do not select a Battalion in this one, you can select the faction you would like to play with but there is no customization before a match starts and access to all the units, including the special ones, is limited as you just get straight to it with basics only.

It does seem to be a great nod to the previous games for the players who like the more classic approach to game design in the series. Within the classic setup you are able to select and pick from the front-line mode, assault zones or the previously discussed combat mode.

Combined arms PVP also supports up to 3v3 in terms of unit choice you are not so restricted like in the battalion’s mode but you cannot go into the match and just choose anything that the faction has to offer either.

You do have to select your units prior to getting engaged into the match but you free to select everything without limitations from battalions and other specializations. Within combined arms you may play the front-line assault zones and combat modes discussed previously.

You can customize almost anything in the battle!

Since we have covered all the main ways to enjoy the game for now, we would have to steer your attention towards the custom options that are available in the Men of War 2 steam release.

You would always have the ability to start a lobby with other players or AI and fully customize the game settings and parameters so that you get an even wider variety of custom experiences that includes a battle with tanks and vehicles only or a more competitive mode that is on the arcade side of the spectrum with a more realistic feel if you do not wish to have a stuffed HUD and prefer things to be clearer on your screen.

We simply cannot wait for the modding scene to take over this entry in the Men of War series and see what magnificent and action-packed setups they would sprawl from it!

The developers certainly did get a lot of the things right in terms of massive flexibility, proper quality of life and granting the players full control over the mainline experience, with the extra high levels of customization that the game modes offer, but there are also some issues that could be mentioned in order to give some feedback for future references.

While each campaign mode certainly has its own distinct features much of the gameplay, battalion types, research done on the tech tree and tweaking your various echelons does remain mostly the same. The game provides you with a lot of quantity but the level of actual gameplay variety does seem to need a bit of more work on it.

Even though graphical and visual levels are far from AAA, they are decent enough and do deliver a proper sight to be appreciated, however the camera angles could be a bit awkward and not so ideal at times and the pathfinding mechanics do need to be more logical as some soldiers could literally go out of their trenches in the open terrain thus exposing themselves to enemy fire in a very unreasonable manner. Another thing to point out is the online only availability of the game and the load and matchmaking times could be a bit longer than expected.

In conclusion, the game can be described as a proper entry in the World War II strategy games and we do have to admit that navigating through a massive realistic battle where everything could be blown up to pieces, including yourself, is quite the fun gaming experience and it never gets old through the years. We did enjoy our little time spent on the battlefields that Men of War 2 presents and look to the future where it gets even richer and nicer!