Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on earth that remembers Close Combat. I loved how the units felt like real people instead of automatons. That’s definitely a franchise I would love to see return.
this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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I completely agree; the buildup and production involved in most RTS games is tedious to me. Close Combat seems like the perfect middle between simulationist war games and RTS chaos. It was actually developed as a Squad Leader game before they lost the Avalon Hill license.
The Combat Mission games were fairly similar, with my favorite feature being a mode where you issue orders in 1 minute increments; you're watching the battle play out in real time, but it's still turn based. Edit: Apparently they're still making these. Here is the one I remember playing most. I still like the Close Combat games better to just jump into though.
The only modern franchise I've played that has a similar play style are the Total War games, but I think they realize WWII isn't a great fit for them.
Command & conquer: Red Alert
I'm more of a Tiberian Dawn person myself
It's a close second, but red alert has the better balancing in my opinion
I just don't like the style of RA as much, and I'm usually a campaign-only player for C&C anyway
Fair. I get that. I had the same problem with red alert 2. It could be the better game, but the style just doesn't interest me. For the later games mainline c&c has the better style. Including c&c3 and ra3.
Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge
There is even an open source version
EA just opened sourced the real RA as well!
Rise of Nations
Total Annihilation
That soundtrack chefs kiss
I loved just loitering on the main screen for that lovely white noise/cave sound/immortal machine music vibe.
Rise of Nations: Extended Edition
Man I haven’t played Close Combat in probably 27 years but I instantly recognized that screen shot. Great game!
I still play C&C Generals and Supreme Commander fairly often. Not sure I’d call them retro but they are pretty old!
Generals:Zero Hour is still a great play, especially with mods.
Commandos
With commandos 3 breing my fav
The joy of slowly advancing position… preparing the covert mission objectives… hours of careful planning and precise movements… only to hear « Alarm!! Alarm!!! »
Historyline: 1914 - 1918
I was having a blast playing through Combined Arms recently. It's a mod (or revamp) of OpenRA which provides a story an campaign that involves factions from all C&C and RA games, including the Scrin.
And best of all: Since it's based on OpenRA it's completely free. I highly recommend check8ng it out. It's well balanced, it involves a cool story, and while I'm mostly a tiberian dawn kind of guy, I'm sure it'll appeal to Red Alert fans as well.
Ever wanted to see how the mammoth tank fares against a tesla coil? Or a scrin carrier against a Yak? Well now you can try it.
Sudden Strike 2
I loved close combat games! I still want think and look for similar games. It left a void I haven't quite filled.
Empire Earth
Oh, I'd forgotten about that game. I actually liked it better than Age of Empires.
If war-themed FFs fit in, and if people accept a 19 y.o. PS2 game as retro, Final Fantasy XII is pretty good, and points for the story going more the infiltration and diplomacy routes instead of protagonists buldozing everything like in previous games.
And on a more classic sense of war, Outlive is pretty good but hard. Also wasn't expecting the units' quotes (at least in the Portuguese dubbing; haven't checked it in English) to be as silly/amusing, but it helps cracking up some smiles here and there.
Warlords 3 Dark Lords Rising, Age of Wonders a close second.
I played so much Warlords 2 multiplayer with my siblings when I was a kid. I should check that series out again.
I never really played 2, but the art and music in 3 are amazing. Very fond of that era in fantasy art.
There was an old fighter pilot game that I used to play on linux back in the day all the time in the early 2000s. I can't remember the name but it was because my dad's laptop was very cool to me and ran SUSE, so I played that, super tux, and a few free games because the alternative was a windows 95 machine with a 10 gig upgraded hard drive.
Falcon 3
Fallen Haven