Planning Is Half The Battle
To say that Battleplan was one of the games I was most excited about playing in 2025 is quite an understatement. The idea of it seemed pretty damn great: a strategy game, set in World War 2 with a control scheme similar to that of Hearts of Iron 4’s planning tools, and it’s also set during the Normandy Campaign. Sounds like a match made in heaven, right? Well, let’s find out about that. I’m going to go over what I enjoyed during this very early preview, what I think the game needs to improve, and why I think there might be something special here.
For disclaimer purposes, I’ll be ignoring the existing bugs of the game. It doesn’t seem fair to me that I mention bugs that I have found while playing a game that’s currently still in very active development, and this was clearly a showcase of what’s available “as is.”
This preview build of Battleplan is composed of four missions in total. Two are tutorials, with the first going over the basic controls and mechanics of the game, including combat and logistics, while the second mission goes a bit more in-depth into things such as unit veterancy, putting up complex attacks, surrounding, and cutting off enemy units from supply. These tutorial missions do a decent job of teaching players the basics of the game. I have replayed them twice already, just in case I missed something, and I feel that I have a good grasp of what Battleplan is about. The other two missions are “actual” missions, with the first being an attack on Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, and the second being a multi-objective affair, where players are tasked with first holding out Bayeux against the German Panzer Division, and then they have to move out and capture the city of Caen.
Battleplan Has a Lot Going For It
Let’s start with the major positives of it all, shall we? The novelty! That’s right, you know me, and you know that I love games that go out of their way to create new experiences for the players, instead of just redoing the same old formula. I have to praise Battleplan for attempting to shake things up. The game is played at the operational level, with the smallest unit available to command being a company. That, in and of itself, isn’t news. What’s new is the way the whole game plays. Are you familiar with the planner from Hearts of Iron IV? If not, here’s the basic gist of it: you draw a frontline, give general orders to your commanders, and then they’ll figure out how to execute them in the best way possible, according to their abilities. That’s essentially the way Battleplan plays out, with some additions here and there.
Each day starts out at 5 a.m., and the player must select each available division and give them orders to execute for the day (or prolong the previous day’s orders). These orders all have their place on the battlefield and in your tactics, and all have their strengths and weaknesses. These range from simple orders like “Assemble,” “Hold Line,” “Wait Until,” “Move to Contact,” “Rest and Refit” to more advanced ones, like “Complex Attack” and “Defense in Depth.” Orders can be issued sequentially or simultaneously, creating multi-phase operations. One simple example I can give you is an attack combination you’ll most likely find yourself using, which is to “Assemble” at a certain location, to use an “Artillery Strike” for a couple of hours, keep some units in “Reserve,” and perform a “Breakthrough” attack to try and “Encircle” the enemy at a given location.
The game has two modes you can select from in the Options menu: a “Simple” game mode, where the game plays more like a real-time strategy (RTS) game, and you can issue orders whenever you want, but it doesn’t allow for multi-phasic affairs; and a “Planning Phase” mode, which I think is the intended way to play the game, where orders are issued at the start of each day, and you can only issue one emergency planning session for the next twenty-four hours, and you’re limited to watching your plans unfold. I have played both modes, and I don’t think any of them is superior to the other, because I enjoy the feeling of control I have over the “Simple” one, while witnessing my plans play out and not being able to directly intervene is very fun too, even if a bit stressful. Your units can be cut off from supplies because of a planning mistake, the enemy can puncture through your lines on a weak spot on your frontlines, and there’s nothing you can do but watch.
Alongside all these orders come a number of modifiers for each division and unit, from the number of soldiers and equipment available, to their veterancy, supplies, morale, fortifications, defense, firepower, and so much more. There’s a lot of small things to keep track of and figure out how to take advantage of the terrain, the type of troops you have, their condition, and even the kind of equipment they have. I can’t tell you how much depth the game has right now, but I have replayed the Cherbourg mission three times, always using different strategies, and they all worked, so I think it’s safe to say the game is not a puzzle-like wargame akin to Unity of Command and Panzer General. There’s a lot to play around here, and if the final version of the game is packing a significant amount of missions, I think it can keep players entertained for quite a while, especially if they enjoy attempting new things.
Some Things Still Need Work
Now let’s tackle the subject of where I think the game needs to improve. While what’s in here is a solid experience, and I’m very interested to play a lot more of it, I also think that Battleplan needs some improvement in a lot of aspects, especially when it comes to feedback on what’s going on. There’s a lot going on on the screen, and figuring out who’s fighting who, who is winning, and why is not a smooth experience in the slightest. You need to click on a unit, see who’s fighting, and look at the modifiers. I think the game would benefit a lot from having units clearly firing at one another to indicate at a glance who’s doing the fighting, and against who. Things become especially problematic during engagements with dozens of companies on the same location, because it’s pretty much impossible to understand who’s doing what at that moment, as the game very quickly descends into chaos. Checking out each individual engagement isn’t feasible at all, but at least the game gives you the option to do so.
This isn’t helped by the “floaty” movement of the units, who seem to be gliding at all times, especially when they are all clumped up in a location. I understand that a piece of terrain has a physical limitation, but dynamically pushing each other just feels weird, like a sort of physics simulation. Not a fan of that. I much prefer my strategy games to have snappier movements; it makes everything a lot easier to read, and the game instantly feels a lot better to play, and makes it seem like it has a higher production value and quality. This might just be me, but from my perspective, I cannot recall a great strategy game where units moving around didn’t feel snappy and responsive.
Still on the topic of readability, at the moment, it’s not exactly clear why a certain part of the map is or isn’t under your control. I thought this was intentional, but I’m not sure anymore, because as I write this, I have the game running paused in the background, and despite the game being paused, the frontline is still moving back and forth, even with absolutely no input. Maybe it’s just a bug.
The UI could be improved. It’s already cluttered as it is, so just make things like the unit scorecards on the bottom right a bit bigger, and nothing of value would be lost. Also, having the Battle Report on the left side and having to zoom into a specific fight between companies to see who’s winning on the right side of the screen is really unintuitive; they should be close to one another. If it was up to me, the Battle Report would be on the right side as well, and the division tab would be a lot bigger, with better tooltips to identify what the symbols mean for those who are not familiar with military symbols.
A couple of notes about unit control, and how the game could be vastly improved by allowing players to select multiple units with Control+Click on the map, and then give them orders. It would make planning a lot faster, especially if you want to pull off very specific movements and daring operations. As of right now, you have to select the order, then pick the companies you want to have complete that order from the regular order window, selecting the units from the division tree. It’s just needlessly cumbersome, and sometimes you might just want those companies, and I don’t think there’s a way to see which companies you are selecting from the window, so you can very easily want to mount a breakthrough, but end up moving units from very far away and weaken your frontline with the enemy. Again, there might be a way to do this in the game, and I know I can issue manual movement orders to each company individually, but that’s a lot of clicking around. Please add Control+Click for unit selection, or at least Click+Drag.
Lastly, the graphics and the sound. I think the graphics are good enough for the game, nothing to write home about, but decent, and the map is easy to read and with the terrain features very well defined, with forests, marshes, roads, and towns very clearly visible. Checking out the height is another matter, but there’s a specific map mode for that. Sound is surprisingly good, with sound effects for the battles all around you being very immersive—a big plus on that.
Overall, Battleplan Is A Wargame I’m Looking Forward To
To round this preview out, I think that Battleplan is a game with a tremendous amount of potential, with some novel new ideas for the formula that can bring a lot to the strategy and wargaming genres. This is the kind of game that, if it sticks its landing, could lead to some pretty damn fantastic DLCs down the line, with the Ardennes being an obvious choice, Italy maybe, and some Eastern Front action too. I hope the team polishes up the game a lot prior to its release, and does some UI work to streamline the gameplay experience as a whole, because the base mechanics are pretty damn solid, and I have spent the last five nights booting it up and playing the same mission over and over again, and to me, that means that there’s something special going on here.
Currently, there’s no public release date for when Battleplan is coming out, and no pricing.
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