Commandos: Origins Review- Quick Save Simulator

Most companies are redeveloping some of their popular franchises and working to make them more accessible for the general public. We had Tempest Rising launch this year, a spiritual successor to the Command and Conquer franchise that Electronic Arts is so hesitant to remake (or even remaster). Age of Mythology got a remaster last year, and we’re still getting new DLCs for Age of Empires 2. There’s a whole lot of other promising titles coming out this year, with just another popular one among the lot being Commandos: Origins. Yeah, it has been some time since the original Commandos came out, with no hint of a “real” fourth title after the sequel came out. Commandos: Origins plays no differently than the previous games, with only minor tweaks added to the gameplay formula to “modify” it for a more modern audience.

Commandos: Origins brings back the glory days of the ’90s masterpiece with slightly modern graphics. The game takes place during World War 2, where a special group has been assembled by Winston Churchill to disrupt the Germans deep in their territory, where they won’t expect it. The game tells the story of the formation of the original group of Commandos and how they came to become one of the elite forces that fought deep inside enemy territory. Seeing the Green Beret, the Sapper, the Sniper, the Driver, the Marine and the Spy back on the screen felt good as I threw back to my childhood, where me and a few friends had to lock in and figure out a way to complete the missions together (yeah, they were tough). The story is told through multiple theaters of war, ranging from the frozen Arctic to the sand-blown Sahara. The varied scenarios on different maps come with their own unique twists, which make the game so challenging to begin with.

Commandos: Origins has a coop mode built within it, which allows for two players to collaborate over the mission strategy either online or over split-screen. It’s slightly more difficult to understand how to set up a mission with a partner – one needs to open up their lobby and invite the other player, and then start a mission. Even though the game has a coop mode, at multiple points it does seem that it was made with a single-player mode in mind, and that’s fine.

The game, at its core, plays like a stealth game should be played. One needs to sneak past the guards, take out some targets, or complete some objectives, then get out before the remaining guards take notice. There’s a variety of objectives that need to be performed, sometimes rescuing fugitives, bombing places of interest to the Krauts, or just going on recon for the main army. The meticulous planning involved in executing such missions takes a lot of time and focus at its core.

I had played the original game, so I knew what I was getting into before I booted up the game. Most people won’t, so here’s a fair warning – the game does not have autosaves at most critical checkpoints, so players need to save the game before proceeding to make major decisions, otherwise they risk redoing the entire mission at once. Because the game was remade for a more modern era, I do feel that autosaves should have been more frequent and on every checkpoint, but that’s just my opinion. At most points, crucial decisions need to be made, so they should be made only after saving. The game does help by adding a counter that counts the time lapsed since the last save so that players do not forget to punch the save button before a crucial point (the game also reminds you to spam the save button during the tutorial – literally) – it has helped me in a lot of thick situations.

The environment and map design in Commandos Origins are some of the coolest I’ve ever seen. Significant design liberties have been taken in the design of the game to bring it to a more modern audience, which might not go down too well with the more hardcore fanbase. The game does look aged compared to other modern strategy games, but to see it come out of its 90s shell did give me some joy. The fact that most parts in the environment can be used as a weapon or an area to hide in is one of the best parts about the game. In the Arctic missions, mounds of snow may offer cover for the Commandos against unsuspecting guards, but the snow also leaves tracks that the guards can trace to find out where their assailants came from. This gives the players many more options to plan out scenarios and execute them accordingly.

Each class in the game comes with its own special powers and abilities that give it an edge in the fight. The Sapper can plant TNT and cut their way out of wire meshes. The Green Beret is good at taking Krauts out in melee combat and for traversing treacherous terrain easily. The Marine is good at taking enemies out in a firefight, and so on. Each scenario is carefully mapped for the choice of soldiers available for that mission, so players have to play the map to the strengths of the soldiers. Combining two abilities can be very devastating (like setting up a bear trap as a Sapper and then whistling to a guard, who rushes into the trap like an idiot) and can often mean the difference between life and death in a sticky situation.

Commandos Origins looks really well-fleshed out in terms of the environment design (as I already said earlier), but sadly lacks work in polish. There are game-breaking bugs that persist after launch. Markers sticking to the screen, abilities not showing the current count after use, explosives disappearing through the map, and so many more. Most of the bugs can be ignored, but the ones with the abilities of the soldiers cannot be – they literally force you to restart the mission till the game gets it right. This can be tedious, since making it past certain checkpoints is indeed impossible without the proper tools for the job.

The game’s sound effects bring the proper World War 2 feeling in the flesh, breathing life into the war-torn environments. The voice acting of the Commandos is also pretty good, with some goofy lines providing the entertainment that the player needs for a quick refresher before they stab another guard in the neck.

Real Talk

Commandos: Origins aims to take players back to the glory days of PC gaming when niche strategy games thrived, and it almost succeeds. The changes made to make the game suit a modern player base are good and well appreciated, even by veterans like me. But, in its current condition, there are just way too many bugs for the game to be enjoyed properly. I’d recommend waiting for a few patches to drop and then getting it on sale. It’s good to see Commandos back in action!

FINAL SCORE: 70/100