All my boomer brain neurons activated when I played this 18th century RTS’ Steam Next Fest demo

This Steam Next Fest, I haven’t really been playing that many demos. I’ll usually pick out a few, but with so many good, great games out now, I just didn’t have the time. But peeping in just to look around, I found a gem of a game that immediately fired my boomer brain’s neurons.

The game is Master of Command, a real-time strategy game that puts you in the midst of one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history, which, of course, took place in Europe, because where else would it be? It’s the Seven Years’ War, a proto-world war where European powers, chiefly France, Prussia, Britain, and Russia, clashed and fought for, well, seven years. Line warfare took the central spot during the conflict, as did artillery, revolutionizing warfare forever.

Naturally, you control one of these states, managing armies from the smallest scale of the camp to the largest, open battles. You have a campaign to fulfill, unraveled through missions with different objectives and sub-goals, taking place across the European theatre. In the case of the demo, which puts you in the role of Prussia, you can attack some German states or face the Commonwealth’s might in the Greater Poland region. You move around the overworld, decide who to attack and for what reason, and face them head-on, all while completing various mission objectives.

The game is very detailed and thoughtfully made, and will give you a sense of generalship much more than, say, Total War. Speaking of which, this game takes a lot of inspiration from Total War, especially some of its older titles.

Generals have regiments and provide special bonuses and buffs, much like they do in games like Shogun 2. Armies and formations are one-to-one, I won’t say copies, but recreations of Total War‘s RTS formula, and so on. If you’ve played any TW game under the sun, and particularly an Elspeth von Draken campaign in TW Warhammer 3, then this’ll be the perfect game for you.

Master of Command also has this unique, almost cel-shaded art style, which I found super compelling, even if it doesn’t always fit with the theme and setting. It’s an interesting choice of colors and stands out amid more grimy, gritty titles with military vibes, so I think it was a good decision to try something different.

I am a real Total War buff, and aneven bigger history buff, so Master of Command scratched an itch I knew I had but never bothered to look into. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a prominent game of this kind, tackling 18th-century warfare, so I see it as a most welcome release.

It comes out later this month in full, but you can still try the demo if you want, and I wholeheartedly recommend that you do.

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