By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor)
The world is in a complete distress because of a massive global war between the biggest ‘superpowers on Earth’. These three factions are on the brink of collapse, with no resources and money left it is up to the players to be the last general to steer their faction into the right path of glory and victory. Rebuild your homeland, and take back what is yours while liberating old allies in EndWar Online. In this simple yet tactical browser MMO you will get to experience the aftermath of a global war, and the battle to rebuild that follows.
When you make your first character you get to choose between three factions: The Americans, Russians and Europeans. As a native of the Netherlands I sided with the EU to defend my own continent with Paris as a base of operations. Here my allies had been pushed into a corner, now defending with all remaining firepower in a kill or be killed scenario. As the final general, its on you to salvage this train wreck.
Since EndWar Online is a browser strategy game, you can expect to build everything up from scratch, constructing the right buildings to unlock tech and units as the backbone of your world trotting military. Beyond just unlocking units and the resources to create them, you will need to equip your forces with the best tools available to claim any competitive advantage on the battlefield. Gameplay is all about counters and counter mitigators, and having the right units and right counter-units for the battle at hand makes all the difference between victory and defeat. Though even with the right army, a foolish commander will still fall if they don’t know how and where to use them.
Right from the get go you are shown the three general type of units. The ground units, or more commonly known as tanks, who are specialized in taking out everything that sits on the ground. The air units that typically provide a roll in dislodging over zealous ground defenders. Finally there’s the AAV/Artillery units that basically blow to hell anything that can’t withstand its firepower long enough to get in range. Gameplay followed the story of spreading our realm of control from Paris throughout the rest of the country, fighting in multiple locations to liberate additional forces. This process will take a while but offers a not too forced feeling tutorial that shows you how to play and gives you enough resources to begin differentiating yourself.
EndWar Online gameplay is a bit unusual. It’s as if they took MOBAs, the evolution of RTS strategy games, and then retooled MOBA element gameplay back into an RTS/Tower Defense system. Since you battle it out in a different place each time, the environment and board you play on is different, but the same concept applies to every battle you head into. You do not control any of your units, instead you have these lanes that you can place your units on, automatically moving from there towards the enemy until they are in firing range. While this part of combat is automatic, you still have your hands plenty full managing manual boosts to maximize their strengths at key moments of battle. Activating these abilities comes at the cost of commanding points, so knowing whether to spend ’em or save them is vital to victory. You slowly gain commanding points as a battle progresses, and they can even be used to zerg your foes by adding more units should that serve a greater purpose than ability use.
Up till now I’ve only been focused on the single player aspects, but rest assured this is still a browser MMO. Multiplayer comes in three flavors. Skirmish Mode lets you play against other players with the same set of rules as you know them. Fortress Mode acts as a ranked game to challenge generals across the world to climb the leader board. Finally Wargame Mode tests your resourcefulness by having you duke it out in a tradiational arena but with randomized units!
Conclusion: Great
EndWar Online is a strategy game that does the often trivialized genre right. Not only is it completely free to play within a browser, but it was designed to be a fun and engaging game, not a cookie clicker. The story might be a little generic and simple, but as your options increase the gameplay becomes complex enough to keep you going. It does however take a fair bit of your time to unlock some of the even basic functions, which believe me you need before you stand a chance in the multiplayer modes. While the grind is slow, the payoff well… pays off! Skill thankfully has a place here, as just having the best units will get you nowhere in the higher leader board ladders. Get ready to get your ass handed to you learning the ropes, as the pros teach you just how complex and competitive this twist on tower defense can really be!
Want to see the game in action? Check out the First Look video below on our sister site, MMOHuts!
