4 – Hell Let Loose
If you thought I was going to limit this article to strategy games exclusively and miss out on some of the best first-person action out there, you were very much mistaken! In fact, some of the best takes on D-Day are first-person shooters, but for the purposes of this article, I have decided to go with one multiplayer and one single-player. The multiplayer choice lands squarely on Hell Let Loose, which is the best multiplayer World War 2 game ever made, period, and it’s on sale right now, and a new Juno Beach update just dropped to celebrate the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. Do you want a better time to drop in and start fighting?
While it’s true that Hell Let Loose does have a lot more fronts and maps aside from those combat actions of Normandy, a massive selection of those (and the best ones, also), all take place in Normandy. Here’s the list: Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, Juno Beach, Carentan, Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Sainte-Mère-Église, Purple Heart Lane, and Mortain. Hell Let Loose, being a realistic first-person shooter, or more commonly known these days as a milsim, is all about working together with your squad to achieve each of the map’s objectives. Kills will come down to one or two shots, and battles are sparse, but intense, giving you just enough time to feel the tension before all hell is let loose (see?). The maps are built on a proper 1:1 scale and are possibly the best digital recreations we have of what the battlefield actually looked like. The fact that you can play in them, and the game is really damn good, is just fantastic. One of my favorite FPS games of all time, by far.
3 – Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 & Earned in Blood
Speaking of favorite FPS games, let’s take a look at my favorite World War 2 singleplayer FPS series, the Brothers in Arms, specifically Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood, and let’s leave Hell’s Highway by the wayside, since that game is exclusively focused on the Market Garden Operation.
The Brothers in Arms series was made special by the fact that it was a true tactical shooter, and it came out during a time when most FPS were following the high-octane action route. The fact that it was successful, even more so. This was the time of Halo, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and Star Wars: Battlefront, F.E.A.R., and Battlefield 2. Now enter Brothers in Arms, where the guns blazing attitude of the early 2000s was replaced by methodical battlefield maneuvers, command and control of your units, and employing the 4Fs of infantry combat (Find, Fix, Flank, and Finish), with the game’s encounters feeling, at times, almost like puzzles where the goal was to find the best flanking route possible.
Road to Hill 30 follows the actions of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division during D-Day and the 5 days that followed it, until the Battle of Carentan. Earned in Blood takes place in the same time frame. Still, it’s seen from a different perspective, as instead of the player taking the role of Matt Baker, they’re not on the shoes of Hartsock, and experience the D-Day and Carentan as well, then proceed to link up with the 82nd Airborne Division, and the game comes to an end at St. Sauveur, paving the way for the 90th Infantry Division to roll on to Cherbourg.
2 – Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy
How many times have you heard me say that Combat Mission: Battle For Normandy is my favorite wargame of all time? Quite a lot, if you’re an avid reader of the website, I’m assuming. Just in case you’re new here, let me tell you that Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy is one of my favorite wargames of all time. With that out of the way, why is that? It comes down to the fact that it’s the most realistic (and I do mean realistic) depiction of combat in World War 2, set during this specific operation. That is something that no other game in this list, no matter how good they are (and they’re all excellent), offers. Each individual bullet and shell that’s fired is simulated in real-time, with real physics. The soldiers’ morale and fighting capabilities are aptly represented to the extent you can do such a thing. Things like armor penetration and surpression make a show as well, and don’t even get me started on the fog of war and communications, because if you want your troops to let others know that they just spotted an enemy, you better make sure they can talk to each other, otherwise each one will have their own targets, or none at all, and won’t be able to support themselves.
There’s also an argument to be made that Battle for Normandy is quite rough around the edges. You know, with the game’s engine being almost two decades old, and arguably being outdated even when it first came out. If you want an even better experience, I would advise you to install the All-in-One mod, which makes the game look significantly better.
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