It’s pretty rare when a game comes along and completely redefines its genre. Theatre of War is one of those Real Time Strategy (RTS) games that contain none of usual gameplay elements of the genre. There are no resources to collect, no bases to build, no ability to generate additional units out of some sort of barracks, and no weapons or armor to upgrade. The normal strategies used by players to win games cannot be used here. No Zerg rushes, no hyperfarming resources to build the best units, you are given what you get and that’s it. You accomplish your missions with what you start out with and you have to make it work. With all of the normal aspects of an RTS out of the way, combat is all that remains. That aspect of the game is much like many others, select your units, right click to move them to a location, and right click on an enemy unit to attack. It seems simple enough, until you start playing.

Theatre of War is set in WWII era where you are control Allied units to combat enemies in recreations of battles from the war itself. You start the battles with a certain number of ground troops to accomplish a mission. You command these units on immense battlefields with fully interactive environments (blowing up buildings, taking over enemy artillery units). The key to this entire game is strategy. If you have never been the general of a small nation’s army, this game may take you a bit by surprise. There is a level of strategy that you must be able to execute that is rarely seen in games. You must concern yourself with close combat and ground troops, as well as long range artillery and tanks that can sometimes attack from the other side of the map. The realism of unit structure is something rarely seen in games today as well. A barrage of ground units with rifles are not going to be able to take out a tank. Basic ground troops are not going to survive an explosion from an artillery shell, no matter whose shell it was. Most of the tactics that gamers have built up playing RTS games over the years are thrown into the wind.

In case you didn’t have enough to think about during each battle, each soldier has a skill rating in a number of different areas (gunnery, piloting/driving etc). This means that if you don’t have a soldier with a good driving ability, they are not going to handle the tank very well. If you have a squad full of inept heavy artillery gunmen, the artillery shells will never land where you want them to. Now you need to be thinking of which soldiers are capable of doing with skills and make sure the right soldier is sent to do the right job Thankfully, the game will put the most skilled soldier in the correct spot (e.g. driver vs. gunner in a tank). One of the coolest aspects of the game is the ability to “level up” those skills. As the driver drives the tank, he gets better at it, every time the artillery fires a shell, they get a little better. On some of the longer battles this begins to help immensely. Your units become more effective at what they do and can sometimes help sway the battle in your favor.

Visually, this game looks great. The terrain is very well put together, with some very well done field and grass effects. You can zoom all of the way out for a bird’s eye view of the action and not lose a single unit due to rendering. You can also zoom all the way down for an almost first person perspective of the action. Some of the larger maps are breathtakingly large, and give a lot of perspective to the strategy of the game. You have the ability to scout around the map and see where you can make the most effective attack, while your troops are still hundreds of feet away. The camera controls take a little getting used to, but as the game progresses on, it becomes pretty intuitive and compliments the keyboard controls very well.

All in all, this game certainly won’t be for everyone. It takes a lot of effort and thinking to be successful in your battles, something that some players won’t want to put forth and something that some RTS games seem to be lacking these days. However, with stunning visuals and a very well put together engine and game system, this game certainly will be the War RTS of 2007 to look out for.