The classic Commandos series was about cleverly ordering Nazi war machines to cripple Nazi war machines and pull out a bold operation aimed at placing real sticks in the empire’s eyes. But it’s also a series that has been in relative dormant for some time, picking up torches in other games like Shadow Tactics and Despesados, offering a similar blend of real-time strategy and stealth gameplay.
Upcoming Commandos: Developer Origins from Claymore Game Studios, the series finally acquires a long-duly expired successor after returning to the original’s old-school perspective and brutal difficulties following the 2006 FPS spinoff. I recently played the opening mission of Commandos: Origins and thanked me for this revival of an open-ended tactical stealth action game.
As a return to classic gameplay and storytelling for the early PC games of the series, Commandos: Origins is aptly focused on establishing an elite team. As Jack O’Hara of Green Beret, he is hired by Commando Sgt Hancock and is on the mission to rebel against the growing Nazi Empire. After boldly letting the axial forces escape the Allied North African bases, the duo will soon expand their crew and engage in a larger campaign to destroy major targets across Europe and the Arctic region.
Commandos: Origins Works has the latest updates of the classic officials of the series, but it is also a point jump for those who have never played the original. Just like in previous games, Origins taps pulpy style style in the Navarone gun gun vein or the pulsar of dirty dors for the campaign. Core gameplay is a blend of real-time strategy and carefully paced tactical games that order small teams to sneak bases, take out targets and bring them to life. Instead of moving turns like in other tactical games, your squad and all enemies on the field will move and react in real time, counting movements.
Speaking to Art Director Thilo Gebhardt at Claymore Game Studios, he explained how the developers were specially established to help the Commandos series revival, and how they modernized it for Origins.
“Simon Helwig, the former owner of the late Calypsomedia, had the idea of retrieving the command. He was a huge fan of the original game,” Gebert said. “He had the opportunity to get it and after he decided to make his next game in-house, he founded Claymore Studios in particular to revisit the brand, and the player.”
Each mission is tasked with completing efficiently and carefully, providing a list of goals and a large map to explore. Using blind spots with enemy vision and patrol patterns and gadgets from key members of each team gives you plenty of opportunities and a wide range of anchorages on how to complete missions. In a way, it felt like each stage was a puzzle box that solved. A stealth action tactical game made me quickly take the committee and then quickly get used to the hidden guard.
The opening mission in North Africa served as a solid tutorial showing how versatile the versatility is. For example, Sergeant Hancock takes on the role of a combat sapper, a combat engineer who can sweep through wire barricades and plant powerful explosives to blow up targets. I’ve seen a lot in particular about how each squad member can adjust, which will help O’Hara’s advanced traversal skills and quick stealth attacks to help allies clear their path to breaking their targets.
The stealth mechanics are impressive, and the enemy’s AI and level design really shows the level of depth. It shows that security guards remember how their allies are in the area and how snow blowers shouldn’t do. I mostly raw the stage to make sure I was on the safe side, but I was still grateful for the moment when I was able to get a solid jump on my opponent. One useful option is command mode. This may allow multiple team members to plan specific moves to do everything at once. Following the opening mission, Commandos immediately tested me on the next mission.
Simply put, the difficulty here is extremely challenging. If one commando dies, it is a loss. I ended up failing – a lot of things – and that meant trying again and trying again. Just like the early entries, Commandos: Origins sticks to retro advances in each mission. This means that you need to embrace the retro concept of manually saving, as automatic saves are not present in the mission. In one instance during my second surgery, I reached an important section of the stage, but was immediately shot by patroling the troops. I was focused on piloting the crew so I forgot to save and lost nearly ten minutes of progress.
According to the developers, the classic approach to manual saving was intentional. It’s getting closer to the original game experience and doesn’t try to give players too many safety nets.
“We were thinking a lot about fans of the original game. For them, the aspect of the salvation mechanics was something you simply shouldn’t change. Deciding for yourself how you want to save your progress and what risks you want to save is really robbing your freedom,” said art director Gebert. “Personally, I save a lot, and there are bold, experienced players who don’t intentionally save them. And they get closer to puzzles in more creative ways.
My losses felt regularly crushed, especially considering how long the mission was. I often felt the need to take a break, but I still came together. These repetitions turned out to be blessings in some cases. They allowed me to go through a trial and error process and pick up new strategies, and I was able to satisfy my sometimes clumsy situations.
In one mission, a security-secured communications tower had to be destroyed. I originally took all the guards in this area and destroyed the towers, but when I redo the area I simply saw them destroy the tower and crashed with two guards. In one satisfying example, we used a sniper commando to remove alerted security guard savings private Ryan-style quick sniper shots, giving the team room to gather together.
The satisfaction of the live from the tactical game is to see the plan come together after taking the risk. Commando: Origins certainly provided plenty of those moments, even after my crushing defeat. So far, the Commandos revival at Claymore Game Studios has provided a compelling case for its comeback.
