Wargame Red Dragon Review (PC)

Real war is horrible and I’m sure that no rational human being would want to experience a global conflict that involves the superpowers of the era, but at the same time, war is one of the most interesting subjects for fiction and video games to explore and conflict is part of human nature.

Wargame Red Dragon, the new title from developer Eugen Systems and publisher Focus Home Interactive, delivers a very realistic simulation of potential conflicts and will certainly appeal to both military buffs and to long-term strategy fans who are looking for an interesting and carefully researched challenge.

Story

Wargame Red Dragon leaves Europe, the traditional battleground for fictional World War III scenarios, in order to move to Asia, which can offer new types of battlefields and a variety of new armies to simulate, including those of the Chinese, a rising power for the last 30 years, and the mysterious North Korean state.

The single-player campaigns for the new title include: Bear vs. Dragon, The Pearl of the Orient, Busan Pocket and Climb Mount Narodnaya.

They are all based on real-world political situations and tensions that could have easily escalated into actual combat and they offer a solid look at the new mechanics, the strategies that gamers can now use and the impressive array of new units.

When compared to AirLand Battle, the campaigns are smaller and more focused on the regimental rather than the divisional level, which might be a disappointment to the long-term fans of the series.

Bridge action

Naval fire

The big problem is that almost all the campaigns play out the same and they do not include the cool powers that generals had access to in AirLand Battle, like nukes, commandos and special uses for airpower.

The new Wargame also has a very competent series of tutorials that I would recommend to all those who are unfamiliar with the series and its key concepts.

Gameplay

The core elements of the Wargame series are present and well implemented in Red Dragon and that means that the game still offers an often unforgiving and always exciting look at the ways war could play out in the final decades of the XX century.

The engine does a great job of modelling how important scouting, unit placement, coordination, support, combined arms tactics and careful movement are during battle and there’s a clear sense of having accomplished something when an engagement is finally won.

On land, the new units introduced slot in well into the system and it’s a pleasure to see North and South Korean forces facing off against one another or watch as the Chinese and Russians try to decide who has the better armored tanks or the best placed anti-tank rocket teams.

The new maps are also well designed and encourage the player to move around and attack more, although battles can sometimes still be decided simply by attrition.

Play Video

The naval combat system is the big feature that Eugen Systems advertised before launch and, while the idea is interesting, the implementation could be better.

There are ship-focused battles that play out in interesting ways, with long-range missile exchanges and close-range gun battles punctuated by strikes from airplanes.

But when both land and naval assets are involved or when the water area is more cramped, Wargame Red Dragon suffers and it will be interesting to see whether Eugen Systems can fix the issue via patches.

The auto-resolve feature in the solo campaigns is also a little wonky and there are also some minor issues with some unit models, but they are easily forgotten given the complexity of the game and its scope.

Graphics and audio

Wargame Red Dragon is a very good-looking game and the engine that Eugen Systems uses makes it very easy to transition from an aerial tactical view for each battlefield to a close-up look at the various units in action.

I spend most of the time zoomed out in order to see all my various battlegroups as they move around the map and tweak their orders if necessary, but when I get a chance to move closer to my firing tanks or my ships as they launch missiles, I am impressed by the level of detail that the developers have managed to include.

Campaign time

Strategic map

Eugen Systems has also done a great job when it comes to capturing the sounds of battle and the music does a good job of staying in the background to underline the impressive engagements.

Multiplayer

For many players, the biggest draw of Wargame as a series is the multiplayer and the development team at Eugen Systems has spent a lot of time tweaking the balance in AirLand Battle and delivering free downloadable content packs that added new units, which in turn opened up more tactical possibilities.

In Red Dragon, the three core modes, Destruction, Conquest and Economy, return with some tweak to the rules and gamers can also try out the massive 10 versus 10 engagements, although they should be sure that they have a solid understanding of the game before they join one.

At the moment, the community is complaining that some units, especially naval support, are unbalanced and there are certainly players who are keen to win even if the matches they are engaged in offer little when it comes to tactics or fun.

But gamers can also find fair battles and it’s good to become accustomed to multiplayer as close to launch as possible, when a lot of matches are running at the same time, because it allows the player to learn as the rest of the community does and stay connected to any changes introduced via patches.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion