Burden of Command is a WW2 wargame that saddles you with anxiety over each soldier's life

GamesStrategyBurden of Command is a WW2 wargame that saddles you with anxiety over each soldier’s lifeWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Green Tree Games LLC)

Image for Burden of Command is a WW2 wargame that saddles you with anxiety over each soldier�s life

There’s no shortage of World War 2 biographies and movies about the brutal reality and shocking bravery of leadership in combat. For whatever reason, though, I’ve never experienced a campaign wargame that sought to capture not just the tactical but the interpersonal life of soldiers and officers who fought alongside each other for years at a time. That’s the goal ofBurden of Command, an upcoming game which bills itself as a “World War 2 tactical leadership RPG” but uses game rules that will be pretty familiar to a lot of players of classic hex-and-counter wargames.

I got access to a few training missions and two short scenarios in a pre-release build of Burden of Command, and found an interesting hybrid of wargame relationship-management RPG. Burden of Command starts before the characters go to war, in training missions where your soldiers aren’t even using live ammunition—they’re carrying around metal pipes and wooden logs to sub in for their heavy weapons like machine guns and mortars.

(Image credit: Green Tree Games LLC)

Burden of Command screenshot

The story isn’t just about the battles, but about the people in them.

The story isn’t just about the battles, but about the people in them. You name and customize a single character—a lieutenant—as your point-of-view officer and choose how they interact with others and develop their career. You’re consistently given dialogue choices mid-stream of combat: Whether to give a snarky response to a senior officer, for example, is a bit of flavor that bumps up your level of Sarcasm or Seriousness, influencing which dialogue choices you can make further down the line. Conversely, telling the fresh-out-of-the academy rookie officer that his clever tactic is a bad plan would present a choice between the officer trusting you more for letting him try it or your soldiers trusting you more for defending their safety against a fellow officer.

(Image credit: Green Tree Games LLC)

Burden of Command screenshot

Taking your shot

Avoiding casualties is one of your foremost concerns.

But officers only have four or so action points that are also shared with their key functions: Rallying troops who’re under fire and bolstering those who have to lead assaults against the enemy. That means an officer will rarely be able to utilize all three squads in their platoon each round.

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The movements of your soldiers and officers are never trivial. An officer in the wrong place who isn’t properly leading near the front can’t rally their soldiers when they come under unexpected fire. One who’s too exposed and comes under fire themself can lose action points to suppressive fire or even be killed, crippling that section of the company as the next officer in line has to take charge.

(Image credit: Green Tree Games LLC)

Burden of Command screenshot

Accordingly, this wargame combat system gives you the priorities of real field leaders. Avoiding casualties is one of your foremost concerns, and every scenario has both the tactical objectives command has given you and the soldiers' own objective to keep as many people alive as they can. Morale is therefore more important than anything else. You have to fire on enemies multiple times to pin them and not be fired upon yourself in turn—or, if you are under fire, make sure you’re in good cover and have officers handy to rally the troops for counter-fire.

(Image credit: Green Tree Games LLC)

Burden of Command screenshot

No plan survives

Overall, Burden of Command didn’t remind me of many other digital wargames. There are high-level strategy games that include interactions between army officers, but this was more like tactical RPGs such as Fire Emblem or Valkyria Chronicles, except grounded in Band of Brothers-style realism. Meanwhile, the command structure and wargame rules aren’t that common in videogames, which tend to focus on the fantasy of complete power, so the gameplay has more in common with tabletop wargames rules like Chain of Command or Crossfire.

(Image credit: Green Tree Games LLC)

Burden of Command screenshot

Like many wargames it was at times a bit clunky. It wasn’t always clear which units should or can act, or how an objective was considered completed, but those kinds of user experience quirks can be ironed out during and after development. It’s part and parcel with the genre. The big question I’m left with is whether this kind of multi-branching mission structure will mesh well with the long-term management of your soldiers to form a well-balanced campaign. That, and if the decisions your officers make and the stories they undergo will be compelling over what will surely be dozens of hours of combat in North Africa, Italy, and Europe—not to mention a bit of running around with sticks in the Virginia woods.

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Taking your shot#

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No plan survives#

Taking your shot

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No plan survives