Hello, guys! I’m back to my regular schedule after being so busy these last couple of months! We moved out of our old home and had to renovate the new one, and a lot of freelance work came up, so I’ve been rather busy. Fortunately, I had prepared my Steam Sale lists in advance, and boy, do I have to tell you those went hard this year. Just this June alone I had almost half a million visits to Strategy and Wargaming. Something I never expected could happen. But that’s enough rambling for today, and let’s dive into the most recent strategy and wargame news for July 2025.
Slitherine Next Announces New Wargame
During the Slitherine Next event that went down this past Thursday, Battleplan was announced. And I’m not gonna lie, the basic premise of this game is something I’m very, very interested in. Do you know Hearts of Iron IV? How does the whole “draw your frontline and battleplans and then see the AI take over and execute them” thing work? A real-time wargame with what appears to be a decent level of command, detailed orders of battle, and proper geography, and where the basic unit of the game is a company, is something I don’t think I have seen outside of Wargame Design Studios titles. I’m curious to see how this one turns out, and I’ll be keeping an eye on it until it’s released. It’s certainly slated for a review.
New Spanish Civil War Game
There’s a forum post from Matrix Games asking for a tester for a new, unannounced game based on the “design” of the War in the Pacific wargame, but adapted for the Spanish Civil War. While the idea of a Spanish Civil War wargame is certainly an appealing one, I’m not really sure how a game created specifically for Strike Carrier operations is going to work for the Spanish Civil War, especially given the fact that that conflict had a tiny air component, at least not to the extent the Pacific War had, of course. Even if it’s just its framework, I’m curious to see what they do with it.
Master of Command Is Looking Good
The Armchair Historian’s development studio, Armchair History Interactive recently announced their up-and-coming historical strategy game, Master of Command.
I have to say that after going over its trailer multiple times, there are some things I’m truly excited about, and others that I’m not sure will be all that great. Let’s start with the positives: The beautiful and massive 3D battles a lá Total War, the army customization looks extremely fun and in-depth, and historically accurate as well!
Now, about the whole procedural campaign thing. I’m not yet sold on that. I get the idea of never knowing what one might come across, and that’s essentially how war was (and still is), but I’m not sure if that’s what your average player is looking for in a game like this. Also, I’m not really convinced by the idea of procedurally building an army every time I play. I fear that this roguelike design decision might hamper what looks like it should be the main selling point of this title, which is its 3D battles. I fear that this might make the game too fast or too shallow for my own liking. I really hope I’m wrong, because this is exactly like the type of game I’ll love if done correctly.
Broken Arrow DLC Confirmed + Cheating Trouble
While not a whole lot is known about the upcoming DLC for what’s one of the best real-time strategy games to have come out in the last couple of years, a sneaky comment on the Steam page update is saying ” it’s no secret that we’re planning on expanding the game with new factions and new DLCs”.
Despite its successful launch, Broken Arrow has had a rough ride. From the lack of a proper skirmish mode to try out decks and missing save features from single-player, it looks like things haven’t calmed down yet. The most recent event seems to be a wave of cheaters using Cheat Engine to hack the game, with some players reporting infinite units, and one-shotting units. The developers have announced a 2000-player ban, but that hasn’t been enough to quell those who have been enjoying the competitive multiplayer of the game.
Combat Mission 3 Is Being Made
I had this one stash on my notes, having read something online about Combat Mission 3 being made as we speak. A little bit of research later and I found the forum post that states “For many years now Battlefront has been hard at work on CM3, a completely ground-up game engine based on the concepts of CM1 and CM2 combined with the powerful features Unity has to offer. […] That has been the goal since we first started designing CM3 and that is unchanged as Slitherine understands full well what CM is and what makes it special”.
Despite this confirmation being an amazing sign of things to come, alongside the news of a reinforced development team, there’s still no tangible timeline. However, we do know that the subject for the first CM3 game is going to be either World War 2 or Modern day.
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