Command and Conquer needs to make a comeback. Particularly the first two games, Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert, remain classics of PC gaming. They look great, they sound great. They practically invented the modern RTS genre. To this day, whenever I’m folding laundry or doing some work around the house, I get Frank Klepacki’s ‘Act on Instinct’ in my head. I tuck a t-shirt into the drawer and automatically hear the ping: “Unit ready.” Nevertheless, Command and Conquer is currently AWOL. Thank Kane, then, for a huge new real-time strategy game about to make its multiplayer beta debut. Mixing Westwood Studios’ all-time classic with the impressive visuals and huge depth of units you’d find in War Thunder, if you love Command and Conquer, or want an alternative to the likes of Age of Empires and Total War, this is for you.
Broken Arrow is an upcoming RTS game set across huge, realistic environments. A variety of factions and subfactions are available, including armored divisions, airborne troops, special forces, and more. The goal, according to developer Steel Balalaika, is to combine “the complexity of a joint-forces wargame with typical real-time tactics action-packed gameplay.” In some cases, battles take place on great, rural expanses. In others, you’re invading a packed city, seizing territory block by block.
Fundamentally, however, Broken Arrow is a strategy game driven by customization and your own, personal tactics. There are more than 300 different units available, which can be tweaked and alternated in myriad ways to create 1,500 variations. To make a successful army, you need to blend all your different soldier and vehicle types into one cohesive force.
Drop your spec ops troops behind the lines to run sabotage and interference, soften your targets with artillery, deploy an initial shockwave of airborne troops, and then follow it up with general infantry and the armored division. You can’t just build masses of the most powerful units and steamroll your opponents. It’s all in the mix.
And soon, you can try it all for yourself. The Broken Arrow multiplayer beta runs from Wednesday, January 31 to Friday, February 16. The beta is completely open, so anyone can join, and it contains six multiplayer maps playable in the expansive 5 versus 5 mode. Although at launch Broken Arrow will have a single-player campaign, it won’t be available to test in the coming beta. You can find Broken Arrow and sign up for the beta right here.
Alternatively, you might want to try some of the best grand strategy games, or maybe exterminate, explore, expand, and exploit in the best 4X games on PC.
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