A sleeper hit for the RTS connoisseur.

My experience with the Sudden Strike series is too minimal to have any kind of nostalgic attachment to it. At a glance SS4 seems to stay close to the previous titles, perhaps slightly streamlined but not to its detriment. It scratches the same itch I've been treating with the Men of War series. SS4 trims down some of the complexity of MoW in favour of a more focused and polished experience. There is no base building or unit production, you work with what you're given.

What I love about these games is the strategic creep across a map, slowly pushing a frontline trying to minimise losses, capturing enemy materiel and balancing ammunition supply. Sudden Strike 4 caters to this well and can keep you engaged in a single mission for hours. Mission design has enough variation to keep things interesting but the maps are really well designed, beautiful and rich in detail. Normal mission difficulty seems to be fairly well balanced, it rewards cautious advancement and makes you think twice about your next move, while careless play will be punished.

I would've liked to see some further effort put towards sound design, it's not bad but it lacks a little something, some ambiance and roughness... the battles sound too "clean", if that makes sense. Voice work is also something that needed more work but there's only so much you can do given a limited budget.

I've only tried the multiplayer briefly but enough to gather it's not to my liking. Considering the solid gameplay I think there is much potential for a multiplayer mode but not in its current form. It should be scaled down a notch and rework the reinforcement mechanic alas, I understand why it would be bad business to put great effort into it.

All things considered I reckon 40€$ would've been a better value proposition for this game at launch, if you're on the fence about this one, buy it once it's on sale for that or less.

Holler if you're dead.