Commando: The origin is refreshing

The classic Commando series is cleverly commanding a team to achieve some bold actions designed to weaken the Nazi war machine and put real sticks in the eyes of the Empire. But it's also a relatively dormant series, leaving behind other games and games like Desperados to pick up the torch and offers a similar blend of real-time strategies and stealth gameplay, all with developing some sophisticated, decisive strategies.

With the origins of the upcoming Commando: developer Claymore Game Studios, the series finally secured a long-term overdue successor after the 2006 FPS spin-off, marking a return of primitive old-fashioned views and cruel hardship. Recently, I had to perform the opening mission of Commando: Origins and enjoyed the revival of the open tactical stealth game – even though I spent some time mastering it.

To return to the classic gameplay and storytelling of the series PC games, Commando: Origins properly focuses on the establishment of elite teams. As a green beret Jack O'Hara, he was recruited by Commando Sergeant Hancock, whose mission was to fight back against the ever-evolving Nazi Empire. After a bold escape from the occupation of the North African Allied base by the Axis, the two quickly expanded their crews to engage in large-scale campaigns to destroy major targets in Europe and even the Arctic.

Commando: Origins Works has both a modern update to the classic formulas of the series and can be used as a dance move for those who have never played the original. Like previous games, Origins scored the pulp of Navalon guns or dirty campaigns, the style of ensemble action movies. The core gameplay is a fusion of real-time strategy and meticulously rhythmic tactical games where you direct a small squad to sneak around the base, pull out the target and keep it alive. None of your squad and all enemies on the field move around like other tactical games, but move and react in real time, which prompts you to make your moves calculate – or face violent attacks from the enemy on the scene.

Speaking to Thilo Gebhardt, artistic director of Claymore Game Studios, he explained how developers built specifically to help revive the Commando series and how to modernize it to its origins.

“Simon Hellwig, the original owner of Calypso Media, passed away, and his idea was to bring back the commando idea – he was a big fan of the original game,” Gaibhart said. “He had the opportunity to get it, and once he decided to make the next game work inside, he founded Claymore Studios specifically for revisiting the brand. (…) Recently with other competitors in the genre, they have shown that this type of game can still be updated to a more modern standard, but we can be a harder experience. However, we have found more effects. Our interfaces have increased the effects and newer interfaces, and have gained the effects of PAILEF.

Each mission provides you with a range of goals and a large number of maps, and your mission is to complete them efficiently and carefully. By leveraging enemy sight and blind spots in patrol mode, and taking advantage of the gadgets of key members of each squad, you have plenty of opportunities and extensive berths in the way you clean up your mission. In some ways, it feels like every stage is a puzzle box to be solved – through the stealth strategy game, I quickly had to be satisfied with the hidden guard after taking them out of the commission.

North Africa’s opening mission is a solid tutorial for showing off versatile but still specialized team members. Sergeant Hancock, for example, plays the role of a combat engineer, a combat engineer who can cut off electrical lines and implant powerful explosives to blow up targets. I've found how each squad member coordinates, especially in pushing O'Hara's advanced traversal skills and fast stealth attacks, can break the path to targets for his allies, which is appreciated a lot.

Invisible mechanics are impressive and do show some depth in the enemy’s AI and level design – especially how the guards will remember which allies in the area and the snow marks that are visible where they shouldn’t be. I still appreciate my solid enemy jumping as I mainly climbed through the stages to keep the safe side. A useful option is Command Mode, which allows you to plan specific actions to have multiple squad members perform all operations at once. After the opening mission, the commando immediately tested me in the following missions, which brought me deep into the depths.

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In short, the difficulties here are super challenges. If only one commando died, it was a loss. I ended up failing – a lot – which means reloading savings to try again. As with earlier entries, Commando: Origins have a retro progressive style in every mission – which means you need to accept the retro concept that is often saved manually – because there is no automatic storage in the mission. In one instance of the second operation, I arrived at a significant part of the stage but was quickly shot by the patrol force. Because I was very focused on manipulating my crew, I forgot to save and lost nearly 10 minutes of progress.

According to the developers, the classic method of manual savings is intentional because it stays in touch with the experience of the original game and does not attempt to provide players with much safety nets.

“We have a lot of thought about fans of the original game, for whom the way saving works is something you shouldn’t change at all, it really depends on taking away freedom to decide how you want to save your progress and the risks you want to take,” said art director Gebhardt. “Personally, I'll save a lot of money and some are bold, experienced players intentionally don't save. They solve this problem in a more creative way. So for the Commando it's about the creative freedom of the Commando, and the choice of their own safety points.”

My losses are often frustrated, especially given the lengthy tasks of the task. I often feel the need to take a break, but I still assemble and pass. In some cases, these repetitions are a blessing because they allow me to go through the experimental process and adopt new strategies that sometimes allow me to make the most of the clumsy situation.

In one mission, I had to destroy a guarded communication tower. I initially took out all the guards in the area and destroyed the tower, but on the redo of the area, I just destroyed the tower and watched it crash onto both guards and I walked away like I was a 47-year-old agent in the killer. In a satisfying situation, I used the sniper commando to launch a series of private Ryan-style series of fast sniper shootings on the alarmed guard, which gave my team some breathing space.

The original satisfaction that tactical games bring is seeing a plan after the adventure, Commando: Origins will certainly offer a lot of such moments – even after my miserable defeat. So far, Claymore Game Studios' revival of the Commando is providing a compelling case for its comeback that could use the series as an exciting and satisfying tactical game that has the potential to bring the series back on the map.