But it isn't, because B3 has a secret weapon: fantastic maps and missions that are fast, to boot. With that kind of (probably worrying) love for RTS bases, you (and I) would think that a game that said, “Mmm.nope,” to my beloved mechanic would be a problem for me. It's Okay Not to Build a Base If You Have Great Maps

The memory of that beauty still brings a tear to this old general's eye. It was beautiful, watching my layers of cannons, constantly bolstered by new and better guns through the eminently protected resources I was farming, blast the living pixels out of every unit the enemy threw at my walls. I swear, I built a fortress in one online game, a match which must have been craptastically awful for the other guy, where I built a multilayered fort that spanned half the damn map. I was that kid in 2005 who was actually down with Age of Empires III, because it allowed me to build the living hell out of some walls and put cannons behind them. Now, there was a time when I would have been unabashedly - irrationally, some would argue - pissed at an RTS that didn't have base-building. Instead, Blitzkrieg opted for a system which uses “reserve” troops, and points earned in-battle, to bring more firepower to bear against thine enemies.

Going back to the original Blitzkrieg of 2003, the series did something some RTS fans (including myself, to a degree) consider blasphemy: ditch resource-gathering and base-building mechanics entirely. The Blitzkrieg series has a long history, longer than any major RTS out there that I can think of that's still releasing titles today (since we haven't seen a C&C title since 2012, I think we can stop saying it's a “current” series), and it's been a rebellious title in the tradition-loving RTS genre since its inception. Blitzkrieg 3 Is the Culmination of a New Way of Doing RTS But, despite a 66% success rate when it comes to my Big Three, it's actually the most inventive and fun RTS I've played in a ridiculously long time. These days (post- Company of Heroes and Dawn of War), there are three things that I need from an RTS to be truly happy: squads (instead of single infantry units), a wide variety of units in general that are actually worth using, and a cover system.īlitzkrieg 3 ( B3), a WWII RTS that's on the tail end of two years in Early Access, gets two out of those three right.

I grew up on Command & Conquer and Age of Empires though, and I gotta tell ya: While I respect those old one-unit-at-a-time, mass onslaught titles for their place in games history and for the countless, glorious hours I spent orchestrating large-scale murders within them, my taste in RTS titles has changed over the years.

Blitzkrieg 3 mission