Kalypso Media has come out swinging this summer, with new huge game announcements like Tropico 7 and Disciples: Domination surprising fans of the long-running strategy series. We personally have also been blindsided by Sudden Strike 5, which is being marketed as an ambitious follow-up to 2017’s fourth installment. Well ahead of Gamescom, we were able to get a taste of what this new return to World War II is bringing to the table.
Kite Games is back as the developer after a successful enough assault with the previous game, and so we were able to talk to game and narrative designer Adam Barnes about it as we absorbed the many ways in which one can tackle a late-game mission that has the Allies trying to cross the Rhine River. The choice alone of showing us a rather complex level versus an earlier, easier-to-get-into one was promising, but we also got to see first-hand how it could be replayed following completely different strategies.
“It’s quite a lot more open than previous games… 4 was criticized for its more scripted and linear approach to the missions. We kind of wanted to push it on the sandbox nature of it. The amount of units available in each mission has increased as well,” Barnes told us as soon as the demo started. From the get-go, we noticed the raw size of the map was on the ‘definitely large’ side, with all sorts of outposts and smaller bases peppered throughout the zone. The Allies started off not too far from a bridge they had to cross, yet a frontal assault wasn’t viable, as the player’s resources and reinforcements were limited.
This was made evident soon enough; as the player charged right into a ruined village and got ambushed and annihilated pretty quick, Luftwaffe attack included. “We’re not thinking strategically… We’re not doing so good,” we were told as the Allied tanks began to blow up and on-foot soldiers started to fly like ragdolls. This isn’t how most gameplay demos typically go, and it’s a shame, as live showcases handled in this way always feel more genuine and real than heavily scripted ones. In this case, everything that came after this failed attack landed better because we’d seen with our own eyes a straightforward approach simply didn’t work.
After reloading the level, we went for a quick tour of the map, taking a look at the many bases and outposts that represent secondary objectives which, if completed, can make the entire main mission much easier. For example, take out a radar outpost which isn’t nearly as heavily guarded as the bridge and you won’t have to worry about the Germans calling the Luftwaffe in. It takes some time, and it seems that making smart use of trees and vegetation to cover our advances where possible is key to minimizing casualties as we get the drop on thinner but still lethal defenses. Having the high ground also factors into the accuracy and overall effectiveness of your units. Alongside the stealth changes, Kite Games ended up with a much deeper and easier to understand approach to surprise attacks and moving undetected.
Another key feature is the ability to ‘drag and drop’ entire unit formations. For example, you may want your tanks to move to a certain area while keeping the current formation, and it’s possible to get a visual preview of how they’ll occupy the space after the order is executed. In many RTS games, it’s the little things that make all the difference, and the Kite Games team sounds well aware of that. After destroying some outposts, this also helped the Allied units as they faced the heavy defenses in front of the bridge.
After clearing the bridge and approaching a nearby town, the Allies started getting hit pretty hard by a Sturmtiger that was hiding behind some houses. It melts the tanks, but after some ‘developer magic’ tinkering, the Allied forces were looking too healthy to be bothered by it too much. Still, we got a good look at how scary they can be. “This isn’t so much about there being a better way of doing it. You can absolutely approach a mission the standard way, but here we’ve got some amphibious units,” Barnes said before we were given yet another alternative path to victory.
Maybe you don’t need to weaken the enemy before tackling a frontal assault, maybe you can hit them from behind first and cause some noise to divert the Germans away from the bridge. Thanks to some sneaky engineers, a rickety bridge can be built down the river to allow the safe and smooth passage of tanks and other vehicles, but beware of Germans also doing the same if they catch your scent. Meanwhile, amphibious vehicles moved ahead and dropped a small group of soldiers behind enemy lines.
It turns out that you can commandeer the Sturmtiger if you find and ‘remove’ the tank team waiting for the alarms. Hiding behind some pine trees, the soldiers made fast work of the Germans and took the menacing Sturmtiger for themselves. “I think in terms of size, it’s about three times bigger than any map in Sudden Strike 4,” we were told about this specific mission. Some may be bigger, some may be smaller, but the versatile design philosophy is clear as day.
On top of choosing a starting commander which defines the playstyle and provides extra abilities and reinforcements, a revamped doctrines system is also making a return. Most details on that aspect of the game are being kept inside a bunker for now though. So we asked Barnes about the tech behind the game and how they’re approaching multiplayer.
“It’s still Unity, but we have built our own editor for it, which we use to make our missions,” he confirmed when asked if Kite Games had chosen, like many studios big and small, to make a switch to Unreal Engine. “Our developers know it very well, so it still makes sense that we stick with that.” Not today, stutter struggle.
As for the online multiplayer, which Kalypso and Kite Games haven’t shared all the details on yet, Barnes confirmed it was “a very important topic” as the studio tried, from the get-go, to resolve past issues and not to fall into new ones. “So far, we’ve got two multiplayer modes. No final names, but basically it’s gonna be a Domination mode and an Assault mode. It’s gonna be team-based… It’s really important the multiplayer runs and performs well at launch, and we’ve a lot of feedback from fans of the game,” the designer shared with us. Things may change between now and launch, however, which is why both the publisher and developer are keeping that whole side of the game vague for now.
Sometimes, it’s hard to get excited for a new RTS game when we don’t have much to chew on, but we walked away from this hands-off showcase quite impressed, as Kite Games is clearly making an effort to rethink the scale and depth of the Sudden Strike series. Seeing is believing, and what we saw last week made us think players who are into WWII-set strategy games could be in for a treat next year.
Sudden Strike 5 is set to release on PC (Steam), PS5, and Xbox Series X/S at some point in 2026.
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