14 DAY TRIAL // Panzer Corps 2 does not care about production, war material procurement, or political and strategic decisions. It cares about hexes, tanks, planes, overruns, and efficient turn use. But, like all good games, the tactics-focused experience made me want to know more about its theme. All while offering hours of complex, beautiful, fun battles as I tried to move at least one Panzer II to Moscow and beyond.
Axis Operations – 1941 is developed by Flashback Games and published by Slitherine. It is the fourth downloadable content drop for Panzer Corps 2, allowing players to take a core force of German units and command it from the start of the Spanish Civil War to the battlefields of Russia.
The new DLC starts off with a pretty weird mission that does a bad job of representing the complexity of the Yugoslav situation in World War II. Things get better from there. On the tactical level, the developers manage to offer deep challenges and impressive moments. But the game needs to introduce more context, especially for players who might not know everything about the history of a particular campaign.
Axis Operations – 1941 then moves to Greece, Crete, and then Russia. The difficulty of the scenarios is pushed up, sometimes a little artificially. Even the early scenarios have surprises that one cannot anticipate (the undo button is great here) and once Moscow is close Russia has tons of troops to block the way and many tanks to destroy.
The fundamental elements of the game are unchanged and still solid, but players need to buy into all the abstractions of the genre. Choosing perks is fun, shuffling around commanders is engaging, trying to find that one move to unlock a stubborn city defensive can make one feel like a tactical genius.
Moving one army from the start of the Civil War to the gates of Russia’s capital is a complex proposition but also a fun one. The writing is still pretty limited in scope, although a few narrative twists do happen. The tactical challenges are what will keep fans engaged for hours that seem to just fly by.
Panzer Corps 2: Axis Operations – 1941 does not significantly tweak the presentation element of the game. The new unit models are detailed, the new maps well-designed and filled with detail. The somewhat jaunty music seems a little weird, given the thousands of men dying under one’s command, but the overall sound design suits the gameplay well.
Conclusion
The problem for Panzer Corps 2 is one of variety. Playing with mostly German units as they advance against enemies and crush them, driven by the player’s ability, becomes a little boring. Maybe the development team needs to look at Allied or Russian scenarios for 1939 to 1941 to add some spice to the title.
