Men of War 2 Review: Wildly Difficult, Deeply Satisfying

In all the decades I have been a gamer, I have never played a game that gave me so much control. The first few hours of Men of War 2 were overwhelming. Then again, it’s been a hot minute since I have played an RTS, and none of them were as tactics-heavy. Despite having a flatmate who was a WWII buff, I never got into the topic. Thus, it took me a bit to get into the game, and I am glad I stuck it out.

Men of War 2 takes place towards the end of WWII, where you fight as one of 3 factions, the USSR, USA, and Germany, through a variety of single-player and multiplayer game modes. It’s a massive game that is incredibly challenging. Yet, this game is incredibly fun if you have the patience to learn the mechanics and earn the XP needed to build your battalions to suit your playstyle.

You Succeed By Your Hand Alone

In what seems to be a hallmark of the Men of War series, your degree of control over your units is astounding. The game features your standard movement and attack controls, including the ability to tell your infantry what stance to be in. The surprise began with the Direct Control mechanic, allowing you to control a unit with the WASD keys in 1st or 3rd person view. It allows for more precise unit placement within a battle plan and for better aim, especially with tanks or specialized ordinance. It also adds to the battle’s immersion, making it feel a lot more personal. When the odds get overwhelming, you can take over an individual soldier and become the hero.

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Then, there are the little mechanics that can keep your strategy afloat. These include retreats to heal up a unit and the ability to call in support troops like medics to save soldiers. This is invaluable in an unforgiving game like Men of War 2, where troops are a hard-to-maintain resource.

This barely scratches the surface of ‘choice.’ At first glance, it may seem like this game is lacking. Only three factions don’t even cover the key players in WWII, which is disappointing when you consider the factions in other titles, including Men of War Titles. Some game modes and battle structures can even seem arcade-like. However, this game is massive. Men of War 2 features four single-player modes with campaigns for each faction. They also have four different multiplayer modes, with different ways of building out your troops and, thus, different approaches for battle.

Each mode, except the story, has different technology trees. You use XP to research technology, upgrade your units, and explore different strategies. In certain game modes, you can even unlock experimental technology for that time. This upgrade system is key to building out your ‘troop decks’ for each mission. These battalions slot into a time-based echelon system that constrains what you have available within a battle when the next unit type is available and how many of those troops are in an echelon. The game has many different battle-win conditions, mission goals, and overall multiplayer goals.

There is a lot to experiment with, from various upgrade combinations to different ways to win a mission. This game lets you thoughtfully craft and hone your own stratagem. It took a lot of trial and error, which then led to a ton of satisfaction because I knew I earned my win.

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Another element is that you can invite your friends into almost every battle, including the story mode, which supports up to four other players. It’s a fun touch that encourages you to specialize in a type of unit or attack strategy based on your team and their strengths.

Difficult To Get Into

Even seasoned RTS players might find this game challenging, let alone an inconsistent RTS player like me. Objectively, this game is hard, with a steep learning curve, thanks to its many moving pieces. Men of War 2’s twelve tutorial missions only teach you the basics, and thanks to some clunky language and inefficient setups, you miss more than you learn. After hours of gameplay, I still can’t use certain features properly. Like the direct control, which I can’t seem to trigger consistently. I am not sure how much of it is user error and how much might be, thanks to glitches.

The bigger problem in learning the game is that you have to be online, which causes a noticeable lag. In a single-player campaign, it is ignorable, if annoying, but is downright confusing in the tutorial. I faced a lot of gaps between instructions and events, which meant that I never knew if I was making a mistake or missing something. There were a lot of moments with attack commands where I couldn’t tell if I wasn’t giving a command correctly or if the failure to fire/move was just lag. It also doesn’t help that some commands and actions feel needlessly complicated. Combined with how difficult some of the missions are, it is frustrating. The German story missions, for instance, are something I have yet to succeed at, and again, I don’t know how much of it is on me.

There are some annoying glitches, too. The game won’t always switch between command modes. I had quite a few instances where the unit wouldn’t move when I was trying to order them to attack. Then, a terrifying moment occurred when a unit decided to move by itself. Unit pathing in this game is extremely frustrating and makes no sense. Sometimes, a unit will go straight and, at times, make some really confusing turns right into enemy sight. If you try to move multiple units at a time, you can’t predict how they will space out, again leading to you losing cover. In one sad moment, my tank just drove over one of my horses. These factors made the game very difficult to control. If I hadn’t been playing this game to review it, I honestly might have rage-quit in those opening hours.

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The last big offender is its UI. It is hard to read and interact with and has led to more errors on my end than I would care to admit. Thankfully, you do have a lot of flexibility in setting up this game and completely removing the HUD if you can remember the keyboard shortcuts (I cannot).

Rewarding When You Get It Right

This game is hard and frustrating, with so many things that can go wrong. However, the wave of satisfaction when you get every layer of strategy right and score that victory is when this game is worth it. You just need to figure out your strengths, build the correct battalion for your play style, and then outwit and defeat the enemy.

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GamesHorizon received a review copy of Men of War 2 for Steam.

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7.5 Good

Men of War 2 is incredibly hard with a steep learning curve. However, once you get past the initial hurdles, it is a game that rewards the time to take to learn it. Your wins will be hard fought and all the better for it.

The Good

1. The game gives you an insane degree of control over every single unit including the ability to take direct control of a unit for accurate maneuvering and shooting
2. Has a vast amount of content with four single-player modes with campaigns for each of the three factions and 4 multiplayer modes
3. Has a robust technology upgrade system for each game mode that allows you to build troops separately based on the mode’s challenges, which makes your progression feel meaty and satisfying
4. Has a robust ‘deck building’ system to craft battalions for each mission
5. Allows you to summon support troops or issue retreat orders without costing command points
6. Has a robust coop system so that you can play the single-player missions with friends

The Bad

1. The requirement to stay online causes significant lag in the single-player and tutorial missions leading to confusion about the mechanics and errors in giving commands
2. Has poor UI for the battles, making it hard to navigate.
3. Men of War 2 is very challenging with a steep learning curve thanks to a lot of mechanics and details
4. The game has clunky unit pathing that will make the units behave in unpredictable, often detrimental ways, requiring too much micro-management in a game that doesn’t have time for it
5. Some clunky language makes the tutorials and story hard to follow

• 7.5