Panzer Corps 2
Flashback Games / Slitherine
World War 2 strategy PC games have always been a mainstay within the wargame genre. And that’s no wonder since there are a veritable plethora of media to draw from, including literature, movies, board games, comics, and so on. WW2 video games often let you play them in a way that lets you alter history and instead create your own path to victory, or conversely, become vanquished and disappear from history. It’s all up to the player.
Panzer Corps is one of those WW2 games. When it debuted back in 2011 it became somewhat of an instant cult classic. And now aptly named developer, Flashback Games, and publisher Slitherine are coming out with a new, updated version of the game, Panzer Corps 2. Here’s a list of some of the new game’s features:
- There will be over 500 individual units and unit types in the game at launch. Specifically, every unit and faction that appeared in Panzer Corps 1 will be in Panzer Corps 2 at launch, with a few extra units thrown in for good measure.
- Will feature a new 3D design (made with Unreal Engine 4), with units appearing ‘larger than life’ in a manner similar to Field of Glory 2 – the devs feel this is an important visual distinction for these kinds of games. Terrain features are clean pronounced. Panzer Generals 2 is cited as an inspiration for the visual design.
- The turn limit on scenarios will still be there, however, they are adding an option to allow players to turn it off. They will balance scenarios so that players can’t exploit this to farm useful resources.
- the Core Slots mechanic is getting tweaked so that better units cost more slots as opposed to the straight 1:1 ratio of the first game.
- The game’s UI has been overhauled so it can scale to any screen-size, shape, and resolution, making it adaptable and practical. (See Note 3)
- The game is still hex-based, but with the new engine and visual design, the hexes are going to be a bit more subtle on the map.
- The maps can now be dynamically/procedurally generated using their new content generator – this is its own separate mode of play, and is different from the historical campaign content. Can feature up to eight players (See Note 2).
- The game will launch with a brand new Wehrmacht campaign that will be in-between the original PC1 campaign and the Grand Campaign in terms of size. It will feature both the European and American theatres “in a single interconnected tree of scenarios” (See Note 1).
- There will be a day/night cycle, as well as dynamic weather that will change how the map looks.
- The tech progression will be returning, and further to that they will add into the game the ability to ‘prototype’ upcoming new units. How these units perform and what you do with them could affect the final mass-production version.
- Panzer Corps 2 will support as much modding as the previous game and more, with the team looking towards providing a mod manager. Mod tools and the map editor will be provided from day one.
Yes, you read that right, there will be over 500 different units to play within Panzer Corps 2. I haven’t seen a list that impressive since Steel Division 2 came out last year. There’s also not going to be the rather simplistic pixel and sprite look that the original Panzer Corps game sported. Instead, my preview copy has beautifully rendered Unreal 4 visuals that animate very smoothly.
Each army is limited in size, but you can build it up from scratch. However, each type of unit costs a certain amount of points depending on how powerful they are, militarily. As you progressively complete mission objectives, you also gain a resource called Prestige. Prestige allows you to purchase new units before you deploy or to reinforce your army mid-mission.
The full game, which is set to debut in March 2020, promises to include 60 mission branching campaigns for each major faction that fought in WW2. With all of the fun new mechanics and visuals at play in Panzer Corps 2, I can’t help but think that it has the potential to be a stand-out strategy game for 2020.
Panzer Corps 2 has some pretty good looking graphics that make its WW2 gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
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