(* Some minor spoilers for the game… not something to actually worry about).

Hello all,

Wow… it has been quite some time since I sat down and wrote something long and commandos related… and addressing commandos fans once again, that brings a whole new joy. The excitement is building up into me as I write these few lines down.

Prologue

I remember the old days some years ago when the demo for a standalone sequel called Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty was released; and back then there was as much euphoria and happiness as excitement of beating the demo level. Fans rushing to complete it, having a walkthrough ready, pros and cons, talking about it, understanding someone else’s tactics, applying them etc. All that small stuff that makes a game really great.

(Editor’s Note: This only can be paralleled by the release of the original demo for Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines. But for that one you just got a brief acquaintance with the Commandos Universe. It was the beginning. For CBTCOD there was real excitement to actually see what new there was in it).

I haven’t felt that way ever since. Commandos 2: Men of Courage did not have a demo to share thoughts about and for Commandos 3: Destination Berlin the demo was released at the same time that the full game was released. Any true fan of the series would have bought the game, even if he did not play it at all. It is true that although the graphics were wonderful in C3, the magic of C2 had gone missing somehow. C2 had all those elements missing from C3. And although C3 was a big improvement for the series, the game for the fans community was a letdown. The system requirements being very high at the time was one reason for it. I personally enjoyed both games, perhaps C3 right on the moment where some of its problems were overcome. That is the main reason why so far I have enjoyed all the series.

The new direction of the commandos’ series goes FPS or First Person Shooter. When I heard that “fact” I could not really figure out how this could be possible. We have seen other First Person Shooters in World War II like the Medal of Honor series and the Call of Duty series. None of these two games applied stealth techniques in mission. Apart from Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, where there is a brief mission to sabotage a German experimental submarine or another one to destroy a weapons’ factory, there was no real stealth involved apart from picking a uniform, trying not to be noticed by simply walking casually, reaching the objective, gunning everyone down, then getting the hell out of there. No tactics of alluding officers in your path (and the few of them you could gun down easily), of patrols seeking you out and hunting you down, of an alarm being raised and you having the chance to finish the actual mission. No real strategy elements in there. So… how could there be a stealthy, yet FPS game involving our favorite franchise?