Sudden Strike 5 Review

If you’re not familiar with the Sudden Strike series then you either don’t like real-time strategy games, or you have been living under a rock. Sudden Strike 5 has just landed on Xbox Series X/S after a hiatus of nine years. It’s been twenty-six years since the very first game and whilst I haven’t played all of the previous four games, I did manage to play the last one back in 2018 on Xbox One.

Gameplay

Sudden Strike 5 sticks to the traditional roots of the series and if you’ve never played any of the previous games, you’ll get the feel of what I mean. In this game there is no building bases or scouring the map for resources. So don’t think of the game like Command and Conquer or Age Of Empires. This more of a manage your troops, strategise how to achieve the set objectives that face you going into each battle. Development has been clever here as AI units act spontaneously and with aggression.

Often you’ll have to rethink and adapt quickly. You could have great positioning on the ground, but out of nowhere there may be an air bombardment from the enemy. Units you’re provided with aren’t unlimited and reinforcements are scarce, so you need to be thoughtful in your approach constantly. Some missions may take several attempts and whilst this would usually frustrate me in other games, I really enjoyed thinking about how I’d push on the next time.

A Rich & Engaging Campaign 

The campain spans several scenarios of World War II with various methods of combat. Missions could be defensive, infiltrating locations and more. Those who love the era of World War II will really appreciate the accuracy and atmosphere. Theres a good twenty hours or so here if you want to blast through it all. The experience also features familiar vehicles that featured during that era. With 10 famous battles across Europe and North Africa you’re really spoilt for choice with the vast amount of units, strategies and support on offer when gaining prestige points.

Multiplayer For Those Who Crave More

If you conquer the campaign and you’re looking for more, the multiplayer area may please you. You can currently play in online multiplayer skirmish matches against real world players. Whilst I didn’t manage to tackle this area for my review, I can imagine you can get stuck into some intense and highly competitive warfare. It would have been nice to see a ranking system here and a bit more meat on the bones to keep players engaged long term.

Visuals & Audio

I was pleasantly surprised with the presentation in Sudden Strike 5. All of my playtime was on the Xbox Series X and performance is fantastic with no visual hiccups throughout. Even during the most chaotic moments with firefights and explosions raining across the battlefield, it holds up well on console. There is excellent attention to detail across the different battlefields you’ll play across.

Battered towns, fortified locations, trenches and terrain are all crafted with realism. Destruction, air support and smoke effects all add to this too. Audio design is equally brilliant with the clatter of gunfire and artillilery strikes thundering across the map. Ambient battlefield sound is great as well with units shouting commands, distant warfare and vehicles rolling across the maps all adding to that authentic World War II feel.

Final Thoughts

Sudden Strike 5 is a mammoth package that certainly delivers a well polished real-time strategy experience to console. I’m happy to say that it handles really well with a controller and whilst the mechanics do take a little getting used to, it does click pretty quickly. We don’t see many RTS games set in the World War II era, so to see a polished one with enough content to keep you going for a steady chunk of hours is fantastic.

Replayability and longevity extends through the online multiplayer modes on offer. For enthuisasts it could keep you coming back time and time again. If you fancy a copy on Xbox Series X/S, you can bag the game HERE.