Nine best online war games

Hardly anyone would argue with the fact that it is better to play a war than to actually experience it. For gamers who agree with this statement, now there is a huge choice of entertainment in Steam. But let's agree at once: since we are talking about the best, we will consider only paid games in the selection, because only in them you get all the content at once, instead of paying for some decorations and bright guns according to the well-known rules of Free-to-play. Besides, there are discounted promotions every now and then - just mention the War Games Festival - and no one is obliged to pay the full price.

Let's start, of course, with the classics. Red Orchestra 2 is dedicated to the battle for Stalingrad and other heroic events of World War II, including the Allied landing in Normandy. But the main feature of the 2011 shooter was its complexity. Before us is not just an action movie for the evening, but a simulator of combat operations - for a couple of hours in it will not be mastered. Although in general the rules of matches are familiar: there are infantry, armored vehicles, capturing points on the map, story missions, gradual improvement of weapons and growth in ranks. But the nuances, which are common for other representatives of the genre, are subject to some limitations.

Here, for example, there is a realistic damage system, i.e. a character shot in a limb risks bleeding out without bandaging. The machine gun will have to be put on the bipods, and from behind some shelters you will have to shoot blindly. The sound and visual design is worthy of attention. From painstakingly recreated locations to the rumble of shots - everything in Heroes of Stalingrad is created with attention to the theme. It's not surprising, because the game grew out of the Unreal Tournament amateur modification, made back in 2004, and then enthusiasts started to develop it as a separate project. In general, Red Orchestra 2 was not born for money - hence its advantages.

This game stands out among war games. At least because the war here is not interrupted for a minute: constantly working factories, digging trenches, supplies are delivered, and soldiers with armored vehicles are attacking. And thousands of gamers, acting in different areas of tactics and economics, in one way or another affect the course of this confrontation. Here everyone occupies the niche where he is most useful. If there is no desire to tool on the battlefield, you can do logistics, espionage with sabotage or, for example, the manufacture of building materials for fortifications. Even fans of nuclear weapons will have something to do. In general, there is a use for every talent.

But there is a second side to this coin. No matter how good an individual player is, success depends on the efforts of the entire army, and it's especially frustrating to lose battles that last ten, twenty days or even a month. Given the thousands of participants on both sides of the front, talented and diligent loners are lost against such masses. Besides, you play not for generals, but for ordinary units, be it a laborer, an infantry soldier or a car carrying gas mask filters to the line of fire. That's why Foxhole is an entertainment for the patient. And for those who are ready to learn something.

The war that ended 80 years ago was characterized by grandiose plans and large-scale battles. The authors of Steel Division 2 managed to convey these scales. If in Foxhole every participant of the battle is lost against the background of events, here you can see the front from the general's height and manage whole operations of "Bagration" level. In fact, the game has two angles: you can command armies in turn-based mode, tracking progress on contour maps, and organize tactical battles in real time, watching each soldier if necessary. A total of 600 types of units, including the legendary T-34 tanks, and 25 maps are available.

In addition, here you can choose a side. During the same operation "Bagration" you can fight either on the side of the USSR or try to hold the Belarusian borders for the Germans. Or distribute roles with your fellow players so that you don't have to rely on the standard artificial intelligence thinking. Although it's not an ordinary MMO-strategy, there is a cooperative mode and multiplayer, and the game has been receiving patches for more than five years - the recent one (called "Battle for Dukla") is dedicated to the activities of Slovak partisans during World War II and the national uprising against the Wehrmacht in 1944.

Also a kind of classic of the genre, but in a purely tactical format. The strategic level like the Ardennes offensive, the battle for Stalingrad or the Allied landings in France serve only as a backdrop, on which the main action unfolds - battles of small groups of troops for small locations on the front. And in such a scale the little things like height and strength of shelters, details of the terrain, the amount of ammunition and shells on each firing point are of great importance. Traditionally for the series, the game has both single-player campaign and multiplayer with customization. Let's talk about it in detail.

Although gamers criticize the story part for what in popular culture is called "huckleberry", multiplayer is free of these problems, and the story here is created by the participants of the match. In online you can choose from the Soviet Union, two German factions (Eastern and Western), the U.S. and British armies. And each of the factions has features and skills of commanders. The Wehrmacht, for example, can build a solid defense closer to the middle and end of the game, and the Red Army has a more aggressive gameplay style, and they have more units for operations. What is also noteworthy, there is an opportunity to customize the appearance of soldiers and equipment.

As Fallout characters like to say, war never changes. So let's not focus on the conflicts of the XX century and move to the Middle Ages, when people also fought for what they cared about. In MMO-action Chivalry 2 you won't find any specific historical events like the Hundred Years' War in France or the Crusades - all battles are inspired by movies like "Braveheart", where there is a lot of action and little museum meticulousness. But the developers creatively approached to the design of locations, costumes and gameplay. In terms of dynamism this project will give a head start to any other military hit of recent years.

Before you start breaking shields with sticks and fencing with two-handed swords, you need to decide on the class of knight under your control. Heroes are not similar to each other and are armed in different ways, so that the battle does not turn into an indiscriminate dump of identical copiers. There are also several maps to choose from, including the desert, the snowy north, and a typical medieval castle. In one match can participate 64 people, so the battles are grandiose, and the developers did not fail to put a little humor into this meat grinder. How do you like the possibility to throw a cow patty at your opponent?

But who said that a war game should be tied to a single era? In Anvil Game's online action game, you can shoot with a World War I rifle and a flintlock musket as a soldier in Napoleon's army. And all this - with a first-person view and the ability to switch to the third. Battles are fought on land and sea, and up to 150 heroes can be on the same battlefield at the same time, making Holdfast: Nations At War one of the most massive action games of its kind. Add a choice of 27 classes for different ages, wars, and nations. Among the latter you can find England, Russia and France, as well as Prussia and Austria, for example.

The peculiarity of the game is that weapons determine tactics. If you and your friends are holding muskets, you must line up for effective firing - only in this way will the density of fire equalize the inaccuracy of ancient weapons. On sailing ships of the XIX century a similar approach: the captain's task is to bring the board to the line of fire, and the gunners must give a coherent volley on the enemy. However, not everyone follows these rules, so that the battles of beginners now and then turn into a dump. That's why more experienced gamers create regiments (analogous to clans in other MMOs), and this opens up the possibility to organize private battles according to their own rules.

World War I is a rare topic in online gaming. Even before Battlefield 1, which set the fashion for depicting this conflict in an interactive format, Verdun was released by enthusiasts from BlackMill Games. Developers scrupulously transferred to their project real maps of the fighting, carefully drew samples of weapons and uniforms - all done in such a way that gamers felt the atmosphere of the "Verdun meat grinder" in 1916. Adjusted for technology, of course. If you decide to play Verdun now, graphic beauties will hardly impress you to the core. But you will be able to enjoy the truth of life: a rifle disables anyone with a single shot, and a machine gun placed in a good place becomes an impassable obstacle.

The game features four modes: "Frontline", "Fight to exhaustion", "Fight to the death" and "Defense by squads". And the action takes place on locations seen in France and Belgium. Well reflects the realities of trench warfare "Front Line" - here one team defends a trench, and the other takes it by storm. In "Fight to Exhaustion" the two squads have points that are spent with the death of fighters: the first to lose all resources is the loser. "Fight to the death" is just a variant of Desmatches, and "Defense by squads" is the only PvE mode in the list, where you and your friends repel waves of soldiers advancing under the control of artificial intelligence.

Let's move from the battles of a century ago to the modern era. In the war of the XXI century, technology, supplemented by a competent choice of tactics, takes the first place. This concept is at the heart of the multiplayer shooter Squad - teamwork is more important than marksmanship, and the word of a sergeant is not an empty sound. In each match, one of the team's players takes on the role of commander and determines the tactics of the group of nine people: giving orders, marking important points on the map, and informing everyone about changes in the situation. Without such centralized control, the chances of the squad defeating the opponent are drastically reduced - not unlike most games of the genre.

And there are 50 fighters fighting on one side. On the other side of the front - the same number, so the scope of the fights is impressive. The shooter is full of nuances that emphasize its seriousness. Optical sight, for example, is displayed as in life - without black fields around the eyepiece, and an important role in the match is played by the supply of ammunition and materials. In addition, there are several chat rooms: one simulates live chat, and the other simulates radio conversations. Today, Squad is one of the most titled online war games on Steam. It now has more than 150,000 positive reviews.

Games of this series have long been synonymous with hardcore. Arma is when you spend half an hour crawling from bush to bush to the destination point, and then you get cut off by a sniper shot, which is not even visible from under the Christmas trees on the horizon. And also - when you have to stretch your fingers to move and shoot, because there are a lot of actions here, and each one has a separate button. Here artillery works by coordinates, not by eye, and to sit at the helm of the helicopter, you need to spend at least a couple of hours in training mode. However, there are several Arma releases on Steam now - the last one is subtitled Reforger and is dedicated to the Cold War. Nevertheless, we recommend Arma 3.

Why? Because the third part will be cheaper, but that's not the main thing. Arma 3 is more of a fantasy, the action of which unfolds in the near future. There is no binding to any specific events and locations. In addition, the game has managed to get a huge number of modifications - from those dedicated to real battles and hot spots to role-playing servers in the style of GTA Online. Is it worth reminding that the famous PUBG once started with a mod for the second "Arma"? The third has no less potential. And in its "pure" form it is a cool military sandbox game with a territory of about 290 km2, 40 types of weapons and 20 models of armored vehicles.

What war games do you like?