At one point during my first look at turn-based strategy game Classified: France ’44, one of the developers stops what he’s saying, stands up and starts drawing diagrams on a whiteboard using NATO symbology. I walked into that room barely knowing what a Lee Enfield is; I walked out knowing the difference between ‘enfilade’ and ‘defilade’.
All of which is to say, Absolutely Games is serious about military history. Seriously serious. And that’s reflected not just in the premise of its debut game, but in its densely layered systems.
Classified: France ’44 is set in… well, France in 1944, during the Nazi occupation. In the run up to D-Day, the Allies deployed a small, elite team of soldiers into the country to aid the French Resistance in undermining German operations. Your job is to take control of that team, building relationships with the fractured factions of the Resistance while using sabotage and guerrilla tactics against the enemy.
The game I’m immediately put in mind of is XCOM 2. Though there are no aliens or plasma guns to be seen, the structure is very similar – missions are tense, turn-based affairs, composed of both stealth and firefights with small squads. Outside of the action you have to manage your soldiers, level them up, and secure new equipment for them, while trying to gain and maintain control over territories on an overworld map. Like XCOM 2, you’re the underdog, surrounded by enemies on all sides and trying to avoid being uncovered and destroyed, but also dealing with the demands of your quarrelsome allies within the different groups that make up the Resistance.
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