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Review: Can Tannenberg stand up against its counterparts?

by Daniel Rivera

Correction: This article was updated to change the image.

World War 1 is an obscure era in history. It had a few offshoot movies and a few video games, but it is largely overshadowed by the Second World War. What’s even more obscure, are the tales from the Eastern Front. 

“Tannenberg” is a part of a two-game package, “It” and “Verdun,” portraying the Western and Eastern fronts of World War 1. “Verdun” was released in 2015 and “Tannenberg” in 2017 on PC. They were both developed by Blackmill Games and published M2H games. 

Tannenberg covers the Eastern front of WW1, although it doesn’t play as fast as its trench rushing half, “Verdun.” This is for a few reasons, console limitations being the main cause. But this is something I’ll get into later. 

Right now, let’s focus on the question: How does “Tannenberg” differ from “Verdun”? 

In “Verdun,” the battle took place along vast trench lines, where each side attempts to attack and defend. Whereas in “Tannenberg,” the teams fight to capture and defend flags in order to control the battlefield. When playing online, the game holds 40 players with bots making up the difference. This game aims for historical accuracy, as its Steam page reads, “With uniforms recreated to the tiniest detail and weapons modelled to exact references.” 

With this in mind, the game plays much slower for it. 

You fight mostly with long bolt action rifles. Each shot takes a while to aim to shoot, but each shot could be death, so a gunfight can end pretty quickly. Entrenched machine gun nests in particular are absolutely devastating if you’re on the receiving end. 

The engagements are dynamic, from forest skirmishes to rushing or defending flags. Though the gameplay is slow, it’s still engaging and even deadly. The guns are heavy, hit hard, and fire slow, especially the entrenched machine guns, which are capable of mowing down dozens of charging infantry. 

Its only weakness is the graphics, which have been downgraded compared to “Verdun.” It has really good looking character models and rifle designs but also a really short render distance. 

This applies to the environment as well but commendably, these locations look similar to their real-world counterparts. You lose details on the model the further out you are from a given object which means most of the targets you’re shooting at are non-descript claymen. 

This hurts the atmosphere the game drives for, which consists of blood, mud, and screaming. This game drives for that immersion and it comes across in its sound design, explosions ring out, machine guns roar, and men yell as they charge headlong towards it. 

Another problem is the AI count. It’s rare for a shooter on console to actually have bot modes. They add life to potentially dead games. But the number is really low if you solely play with bots, capping out at 24, including the player. These maps shipped with 64 players or AI to start on PC. 

Because of this difference, the maps play slower on a console. And there can be a good chunk of time between firefights, which happens often unless you move towards the middle of the map. 

The AI isn’t very smart either, sometimes they follow you as squad leader, but pretty often they decide to go literally anywhere else. The enemy AI, on the other hand, is solid, putting up a good fight, sometimes killing you before you’ve seen them.

It has a solid amount of content for the asking price, assuming you like what’s offered. 

Finding filled lobbies with only players doesn’t happen. Though, you can find 40 player matches that are fluffed with bots at certain times of the day but, it’s also rare.

Another problem with Tannenberg, which was also a problem in Verdun, is that only one mode has bot support. For both, it’s the main big team modes; Frontlines for Verdun; and Maneuvers for Tannenberg. 

But variety is the spice of life, and it breathes that much more life into the game. Bots are a large part of the sale here after all, being one of the few console shooter games to have it. To add to this it is a game of decent quality. In most shooters with AI, you will find they are usually very basic aimbots or are barely functional, getting stuck on the terrain often. 

Its large team mode is extremely fun when there are matches to be found. And forget about playing the smaller modes, the player base is sparse. The AI count doesn’t match the map size but functions well enough, with competent but slow combat. When you can do a full match, the game really comes into its own.

This is a niche title for the history enthusiast or tactical shooter fan. It is for people who don’t mind, or even enjoy, bot modes like myself. The industry is shifting towards more multiplayer, online-centric games, so “Tannenberg” is a good counter to that trend. 

The faults of this game on the console are limitations of the aging console hardware and not the core of the game. But it’s solid nonetheless.

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