What is objectively the best WW2 game?

Need opinions on this. Gaming experts. No genre specific or time frame. Just best. 1 game. Fantasy elements allowed.

I vote for CoH

HM: medal of honor front lines/pacific front

Cod gets a lot of hate here but World at War and COD 2 were objectively great WW2 SP games

Medal of honor Frontline.

I always enjoyed The Saboteur.

Open-world game that takes place in France, specifically Paris. You play a mechanic and are drafted into the resistance where you fight the nazis.

It was lot of fun, and either laid the groundwork or was inspired by Red Faction: Guerilla.

Other honorable mentions:

• Company of Heroes 1 and 2
• Sniper Elite 2-5
• Day of Defeat. Probably my third most-played HL mod/expansion after Team Fortress and Counter-Strike.
• UBOAT. Really good independent submarine simulation that is soon to be out of early access. Very approachable and easy to get into, but you can crank the detail and difficulty up to realistic and it's brutal.
• Brothers in Arms. Better than any of the Call of Duty games that were in WWII. Seriously.
• Commandos. Some of them were garbage but iirc 1 and 2 were great.
• Partisans. Essentially a Commandos clone, it came out a year or two ago and seems to have gone unnoticed by everyone. It was quite good and did the sub-genre (real-time squad-based tactical stealth action) proud.
• Silent Storm: turn-based action-RPG with just a small pinch of steampunk (there are mechs, iirc), quite fun. There is a bit of jank but it was "good" jank....
• Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe: old Lucasarts flight sim from the mid-90s. Really fun, great detail. Loved manning B-17 bombers and using all the machine guns on enemy fighters then dropping my bombs and limping home. Likewise, hopping into one of those German experimental jets, zooming up to altitude, and intercepting bombers was great fun.

Totally forgot got this off GOG 100 years back.

Think the rest of the world also forgot this game existed.

Haven't played a whole lot of them. Filthy casual, probably spent the most time with CoD2 online out of the bunch. Good amount of BF42 as well. And of course a lot of OG Wolf 3d. Think you gifted me RTCW?

Liked Commandos, been thinking of revisiting those. Be dope if Mimimi did a take on those.

That's an awesome game. I enjoyed it so much, I picked up a second copy (back in the good old days of physical media) and gave it to my younger brother. Then some how, some way, his copy made it back to me and now I've have two of them. I'd say that it's a great, under appreciated game based in the WWII era.

If we're talking about FPS, then for me it would be CoD 2. I've played through the game multiple times and still have my physical copy of it.

If we're talking about RTS, then hands down it would be Company of Heroes.

Sniper Elite games are good, too, but I still like CoD 2 over the SE franchise.

Yeah same haha. It wasn't particularly amazing, but it was just good, cheap, action-movie fun. Blow shit up, shoot nazis, drive cool old cars...plus some stealth aspects to it, too.

Had some cool style as well, with nazi-occupied parts transition to black and white (but their red armbands staying red, and other accents). They put a lot of work and love into it, I specifically remember overhearing various conversations, one of my favorites was two nazi soldiers talking and one was like "Oh I love Betty Grable" and the other guy was like "Ssssh the officer will hear you" and his response was "I Don't care if she is American, she is so pretty" lol

I love little details like that.

You should check out Partisans 1941

Essentially a Commandos clone, which in turn inspired Mimimi to make a feudal Japan version....which in turn I think inspired Partisans to be made (due to the success).

@mrbojangles25:

Oh sick, didn't even know that was a thing.

Thanks!

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

If it's a WW2 themed game with fantasy elements then I would go with Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Without fantasy elements, it would be Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.

If you’re going to qualify the question with “objectively”, then I’d have to hand it to the original Company of Heroes.

Game has very few flaws that I can see. Everything is well-designed, executed, it’s well-balanced, has decent MP, AI is solid, it has a bangin’ SP campaign, good soundtrack and presentation.

What’s not to like?

@mrbojangles25: i love day of defeat. Take back what I said, this is my favorite. I played so much day of defeat as a kid, then source came out and it was even better. I hopped on it last year and people still play, some server I joined was playing on a custom map that was basically beaver creek from Halo. I swear only russians play it tho any more. Every server.

So many good ones, so I'll go with a more unique one, as in, not a shooter explosion game.

Prisoner of War. Janky but the setting is great.

Commandos.

• Return To castle wolfesintien
• Call of Duty 2
• Brothers in Arms road to hill 30
• Commandos

Call of Duty 1 and 2

Day of Defeat and Battlefield 1942 get my votes.

Pretty sure I've never liked a WW2 game much. Sadly didn't play Return to Castle Wolfenstein back in the day, but it would most likely have been my favorite if I did. It has fun gameplay and story. Sadly didn't play BF1942 either. BF2 was my first.

I did like CoD1 and 2 though. No idea which I liked more. I'll also never replay them, which says something.

Commandos followed by Company of Heroes

Honestly can't remember, prob did.

Dope. Barring that shitty auto-fail stealth level.

Since fantasy elements is allowed then Valkyria Chronicles. Pretty much alternate universe version of WWII. Used to be one of my all time fav PS3 games and it still holds up well.

Blazing Angels 2: Secret Mission of WW2. Super arcadey flight combat game, plays like a more grounded take on Crimson Skies.

id have to go with cod 2. it's not glamorous at all but that helped create a really authentic atmosphere. it wasn't a single hero that saw off the nazis, it was the collective effort of allies from all over the world, and the game does a really good job of portraying that. wasn't super keen on the desert tank mission but the rest was great. it plays really well on high difficulty too, it's brutal but fair, feels like war

Panzer General II

Love me some ww2 games.

Company of Heroes gets my vote as well. Just an amazing RTS that is still the pinnacle of the genre imo and really captures the tactics and atmosphere of ww2.

HM:

- Red Orchestra 2/Rising Storm

- Hell Let Loose

- Medal of Honor Allied Assault/Pacific Assault

- Call of Duty 1/2

First time hearing on this one. Nice find.

CoD 1 blew my mind the first time I played it. I had never played anything where explosions actually scared me. I never played the SP for CoD 2, but MP felt great. World at War had a great SP as well.

I don't know how well old Wolfenstein holds up, but the original and Spear of Destiny were life changing for me. RtCW multiplayer was super fun. Played the Beach demo constantly, until finally buying the full game.

I really like the feel of Commandos, but I haven't tried it again since the 90s, because it was so hard. I own Company of Heroes, but just have never gotten around to it. The shelling animation in Hell Let Loose looks awesome. Where they keep creeping closer to you. More games should use effects like this to overload the senses and increase immersion.

Oooh. I'm going to check that out.

Wolfenstein series

BloodRayne on the basis of being a vampire going all John Woo on Nazis.

CoD: World at War

@DEVILinIRON: Just be careful of the PC version. It's abandonware, but has some gnarly DRM that can brick systems sometimes. Used copies on console aren't too pricey though.

i don’t know. That last COD WW2 was ok.

Probably World at War or one of Medal of Honor games. In all honesty I think most WW2 games suck. That's saying they could do better.

Nice thread. Just after I installed Allied Assault expansion Breakthrough couple of weeks ago.

With fantasy elements then Return to Castle Wolfenstein of course.

Non fantasy, Medal of Honor Allied Assault of course. Then I would put Call of Duty 2 then the original Call of Duty for the wow factor when I first played with the intense action. Would also rate United Offensive CoD expansion after which was also excellent.

Hell Let Loose

Company of Heroes 1 and 2.

The atmosphere and gameplay are pretty intense, it's probably the only RTS that i have enjoyed almost as much as Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 1 and 2.

I remember that medal of honor game with the D day ooenening scene being really mind blowing to me... Then I remember cod 2 on the x360 being really fun. I also remember brothers in arms being really great. Probably others as well.

There are not a single good WW2 game.

I'm happy you asked the expert.

Man I keep thinking back of Call of Duty 1 as it does everything I want from a game.

It has fast action, varried objectives, you're always focussed on the next thing.

See I love RTCW, but for that game I mostly think about the multiplayer.

COD 2 is great too, but a shame they got rid of the health packs, I see it as a true staple of the genre.

So yeah give COD 1 a play and be sure to use the united fronts mod.

Medal of Honor Frontline or Call of Duty World At War

Company of Heroes 1 and 2.

Call of Duty 2

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 & Earned in Blood

The only part of really any Call Of Duty I like is that bit where it rips off Enemy At The Gates at the Volga River.

It's a really good example for normies of how the Russian army works right up until this very present day.

They completely changed it for the console version to make it tonally "bad ass" rather than "oh shit, oh no, oh god"

It is very immersive almost black mesa-esque where you have to cross the Volga river and get bombared by shelling of Stuka planes flying over. No shooty shooty blam but actually taking in the experience for a moment.

Another highlight of the original Call of Duty campaign is where you are in the backseat of a wiley's jeep, then suddenly your car breaks down and you are defending the hasty repairs of the crew. This kind of excellent pacing felt natural in the original few Call of Duty campaigns.

Whereas today it feels like they are crossing off a checklist. "And here we have the sniper mission, and next up is the stealth mission"

No heart or soul, just a computer who thinks it knows what we want from a COD campaign.

1942.

@uninspiredcup: Medal of Honor: Frontline

@uninspiredcup: Medal of Honor: Frontline or Call of Duty 2

For me it's either Medal of Honor: Allied Assault or Return to Castle Wolfenstein.