Headquarters: Review of World War II

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One

Developer: Starni Games

Genres: Strategy video game, Strategy

Publisher: Slitherine Software

Initial release date: April 11, 2024

Engine: Unreal Engine 4

Let me briefly go over the procedure if you have never written a video game review before. Before you ask, I assure you that this will become crucial in the future. When I find a game I want to cover, I send an email to my editor asking for the key. He then does three virgin sacrifices at his shrine to video game PR people, gets us the key, and hopefully I get around to playing the game and writing up my impressions on a Google Doc. After that, I swallow a large glass of Scotch, edit my review one, two, three times, or until it looks good enough to publish. I then submit it to my editor, who performs his job by, you know, editing it. We revise each other’s edits once, twice, or three times before he publishes the review. To be honest, this is all really simple, and anyone can probably do it (Jump Dash Roll is always hiring new writers, if you’d want to apply!). The difficult part is determining if I want to continue playing the game for which I asked for a key after I’ve finished it for my review, since, as they say, work never seems like fun anymore. To summarize my brief digression, though, there are sometimes games that I continue to play long after my workday is over, and Headquarters: World War II is one of them.

And that’s kind of strange because Headquarters: World War II isn’t all that different from the other strategy games, at least not in the fundamental sense. At the risk of stating the obvious, it is a turn-based combat game in which you take charge of troops on a small number of Western Front of Europe battlefields at the end of one of the worst conflicts in human history as an omnipresent deity. In all of its single-player, online, and multiplayer modes, the game begins with you deploying your soldiers, which you then move around expansive areas to capture different flags or eliminate your opponents. The facts you can play as and the units you can maneuver about are typical of combat. The British, with their highly mobile infantry but no powerful tanks, are masters of none; the Americans, jacks of all trades but masters of none; and the Germans, with their pricey tanks that will obliterate anything in their path until their lack of skilled infantry or artillery somehow befalls them. You also play in quite basic locations, mostly made up of towns, woods, and—wait for it—towns with forests.

Has the joke about three tanks walking into a pub ever occurred to you?

To be sure, Headquarters: World War II differs from its rivals in a few technological ways, but those differences aren’t particularly compelling. Its maps are completely destructible, you can acquire perks that will give you an advantage over your opponents as you go through a match or campaign, and if one of the crew members of your armored vehicles is killed, you can replace them without losing the armored vehicle itself. All of these are very great improvements to the game, but ultimately, they don’t have a significant effect on how the game plays out as a whole.

Going back to the whole “I didn’t uninstall Headquarters: World War II the minute I finished playing it for the sake of this review” issue, though, the fact that turn-based gameplay is a big part of what makes the game so amazing overall. I guess I’m not the only one who feels this way—call me ancient (insert a grumble from my editor, who was a functioning adult before I was even born). I just don’t have the response time for real-time strategy games anymore. Even though Company of Heroes and Wargame: Red Dragon are fantastic games, they demand too much mental strain to play unless you’re an avid player with plenty of free time to become familiar with their intricate mechanics. Even though Headquarters: World War II is a difficult game with many features you can learn to understand if you’d like, you can also just pick up a match anytime you’d want and play it competently enough. It’s a little odd when your soldiers take five minutes to get from a starting position to a target you need to seize, or when firefights take more than a few seconds, but such oddities are somewhat compensated for by the fact that the game is, to put it mildly, just plain entertaining to play.

My one weakness is that I can’t find my way around a maze, and the Nazis have found it.

Play it, you should, and I will, too, because, for better or worse, at its core, it’s not all that different from other games available on the market. What makes a great game, though, is the ability to enjoy it without having to spend a ridiculous amount of time playing it or constantly opening up a Wiki page. It boasts excellent audio-visual design, is properly balanced, and has enough substance to keep players interested, much like those other games available on the market. But in contrast to others available on the market, this one is turn-based and specifically designed for individuals like you and me. And if that’s all it takes to pique your attention, then go ahead and keep playing Hearts of Iron or whatever. If it does, however—take it from a guy who can’t remember to play 95% of the games he reviews but remembers to play Headquarters: World War II—you can acquire it for less money than the price of a 4×8 piece of plywood. Or don’t; I’m not your father; I’m a games journalist.

Review Overview

Gameplay – 82%

Story – 78%

Aesthetics – 80%

Content – 85%

Accessibility – 70%

Value – 84%

Overall Rating – 80%

Very Good

Summary: The gameplay of Headquarters: World War II is incredibly entertaining and a nice diversion from the tried-and-true formulas of games like Company of Heroes, even though the game’s concept is thankfully far from original.