Call to Arms: Gates of Hell - Ostfront
Barbedwire Studios · Strategy
Overview
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell is a realistic RTS/ RTT game that offers endless replay value. Command all types of troops in historical singleplayer, dynamic campaign, PvP and PvE battles. Are you ready for some serious immersion in World War 2?
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Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront features the Eastern Front and its “Great Patriotic War” fought between the USSR and Germany. This RTS will take you from June 1941 until the end of the war in May 1945.
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront offers a choice of game modes including Singleplayer, dynamic campaign, PvE, PvP and co-op.
With its instantly switchable views, there’s something for every type of player. First person gunner views for all vehicles, third person views for vehicles and infantry, classic top-down direct control of a single unit or classic RTS top-down; they are all available and instantly switchable.
Conquest (dynamic campaign) mode offers singleplayer and co-op modes to play with your friends. Both modes allow you to compose your own army group, research new units and strategically advance in different paths to dominate the battlefield. The dynamic campaign can range from short to unlimited campaign lengths.
PvP/PvE offers a wide variety of maps from 1v1 to 4v4, and the use of “Doctrines”. These allow you to choose your own special units that fit your individual playstyle. The stage of the war (Early/Mid/Late) can be selected, to experience the evolution of equipment and vehicles as the conflict progressed.
Single player campaigns take place at historical locations, painstakingly recreated and immersive as hell.
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront offers:
12 historical singleplayer missions that can also be played in co-op with friends.
30 PvE and PvP maps
PvE Dynamic campaigns in which you develop your own army and fight an ever- changing war across a big collection of maps
PvP multiplayer offers doctrines to specialize your armies
Instantly switchable 3rd person/ direct control view mode for infantry
Instantly switchable 1st person/ 3rd person / direct control view mode for vehicles
Over 250 vehicles and 100 heavy weapons at your disposal
Air support mechanics and off-map artillery support
Realistically armored vehicles with accurate armor layouts, historical ammo loadouts and fully modeled internal components
The most realistic armor penetration and ammunition mechanics of any RTS out there
Land mines, magnetic mines, obstacle-laying, foxhole-building, bayonets, smokescreens, medics and countless other game mechanics
Authentic sound design and visuals
A full in- game editor plus modding/ workshop support
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,998 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Most players recommend Gates of Hell. They describe a detailed, slow and unforgiving World War II tactics game in the mould of the old Men of War series. Reviews praise the realism, a tank damage model where shells hit armour, crew and components instead of draining a health bar, and the conquest mode, a dynamic campaign where your army, its loot and the battlefield damage carry from battle to battle. They also like the large mod scene, the sound of the fighting, and the ability to take direct control of any soldier, gun or tank. More than a fifth of reviews measure it against Men of War: Assault Squad 2, usually calling it that game's successor.
Complaints about the game's own units come up most often, just ahead of crashes. 17% of reviews describe poor unit AI or pathfinding: soldiers who ignore an enemy in front of them, tanks that turn their flank to shoot infantry, trucks that drive into trees. That complaint appears in a third of negative reviews and still shows up in 11% of positive ones. Crashes and performance problems are close behind (16% of reviews, 28% of negative ones), with memory errors and slowdowns in big battles among the specific reports. Players disagree about the DLC model, about how much micromanagement is fun, and about the campaign's mission design.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Realism, detail and a damage model without health barsHigh
26% of reviews praise the realism, historical accuracy, attention to detail or the armour and damage model. Players describe angling armour, picking ammunition types, crews being killed by a penetrating shell while the tank keeps rolling, and uniforms and vehicles researched down to small variants. One summary: "Vehicles have components instead of health bars." A smaller group of reviews finds the realism uneven. They say weapon ranges are short, with tanks often engaging at 100 to 200 metres, that some penetration results look wrong, and that enemy artillery seems far more accurate than their own. Far fewer reviews make these points than praise the simulation.
Conquest, the dynamic campaignHigh
23% of reviews mention conquest or the dynamic campaign. Players like researching units through the war years, keeping veteran soldiers alive across battles, repairing captured tanks and selling spare gear, and fighting over maps that keep their craters, wrecks and trenches. One reviewer wrote that "the Conquest Mode alone is the largest advancement in this genre". The same mode draws complaints too: enemy waves that grow huge, defence rounds you must wait out after the attackers are dead, a small pool of maps, and no pause or save in single-player conquest.
Mods and the WorkshopHigh
23% of reviews mention mods or the Workshop. Names that recur include Valour and MACE (extra factions and units), Conquest Enhanced, the Warhammer 40,000 overhaul Indomitus, Dawn of the Dead (zombies) and Cold War conversions such as West 81. Some players treat mods as essential, in the words of one recommending review: "Mods good, vanilla bad." A smaller set of reviews describes the downside: load orders that have to be edited by hand, updates that break mods or saves, "resource desync" errors in modded co-op, and achievements that switch off when any mod is active.
Seen as the successor to Men of WarHigh
22% of reviews compare the game with Men of War or Assault Squad 2. They usually say Gates of Hell keeps the old formula and improves graphics, sound, stability and unit handling, with conquest on top. Men of War II comes up in 3% of reviews, usually as the weaker game; one review sums it up as "What MoW2 should have been." A handful go the other way and tell readers to play Assault Squad 2 instead, citing its bigger base roster and cheaper add-ons.
Sound and battlefield atmosphereHigh
19% of reviews mention the sound or the visuals. Much of that praise is for the sound design, from the crack of passing rounds to the weight of artillery: "Every shot, every explosion, every piece of artillery feels like it has weight behind it." Explosions, fire and building destruction get praise as well. A smaller group finds the overall look dated and muddy, with similar browns and greys that make units hard to spot, and a handful single out weak voice acting in the mission briefings.
Direct control of any unitHigh
17% of reviews mention direct control or the third-person and first-person views. Players describe jumping from the overhead view into a single rifleman, an AT gun or a tank gunner, aiming at a weak spot and jumping back out. One puts it simply: "Direct control is glorious." Some say the shooting and movement in direct control feel stiff, and some negative reviews describe it as a workaround for units that will not act on their own.
Co-op with friendsMedium
10% of reviews mention co-op or playing with friends. Reviewers say every campaign mission can be played in co-op and that up to four players can share a conquest campaign, and some call co-op the best way to play. The complaints are practical: only the host makes conquest decisions, guests rejoin the lobby after each battle, a dropped player cannot rejoin a long mission, and a few reviews say co-op DLC missions need every player to own the DLC.
Scavenging, looting and stealing enemy gearMedium
9% of reviews mention looting, scavenging, inventories or capturing enemy equipment. Players enjoy rearming a starter squad with captured machine guns and Panzerfausts, repairing a knocked-out enemy tank and turning it on its owners, or stealing artillery. One reviewer's rule of thumb: "Theft is always a valid method of procurement." That per-soldier inventory is also behind much of the micromanagement criticism below.
A developer that keeps updating the gameMedium
7% of reviews praise the developers for listening, caring or shipping steady updates. Reviewers mention free content alongside the paid DLC, quality-of-life additions such as an automatic medic, and patches that improved the AI and the sound. "Each update is solid improvement." Critics counter that new DLC arrives faster than fixes for old problems.
Where players are split
Campaign missionsHigh
33% of reviews mention the campaign or its missions. Fans praise historical battles with long, varied missions, playable in co-op, and single out DLC campaigns such as the airborne operations ("Great RTS game, with a well done WW2 campaign"). Critics describe too many hold-the-line defences, stealth missions that fight the engine, objectives that are unclear or fail to trigger, unskippable cutscenes during which units die, and difficulty spikes on Hardcore. One negative review says it outright: "The missions are lazy." Some players skip the campaign entirely for conquest.
DLC volume and priceHigh
25% of reviews mention DLC. According to reviewers, the base game includes Germany and the Soviet Union, while the US, the Commonwealth, Finland and further campaigns are paid add-ons, and conquest research trees show units from DLC you do not own. 9% of reviews tie the DLC to price, paywalls or cash grabs, and some call the full bundle too expensive. Others say the add-ons are full-sized and worth it, especially on sale. A typical middle position: "DLC prices are steep, but its a great game!"
Micromanagement and the learning curveHigh
15% of reviews mention micromanagement or the learning curve. Fans like that every soldier has an inventory and every vehicle needs fuel and ammunition, and they say the game becomes rewarding once it clicks: "A LOT of jank but a good time once you figure it out." Critics describe hand-loading shells into tanks, moving squads one at a time, and correcting units that leave cover; one negative review calls it "Babysitting: The Game." Reviews that talk about the learning curve tend to say it pays off, while those that call the micromanagement tedious or hellish lean negative.
DifficultyMedium
15% of reviews mention difficulty or challenge, and some players say they enjoy Hardcore and the sense that mistakes cost men. The disagreement is about calibration. A smaller group says the steps between settings are too wide or that even Easy is punishing: "The easy difficulty setting is way too easy and the normal difficulty setting is way too hard."
What frustrates players
Unit AI and pathfindingHigh
17% of reviews complain about the AI, pathfinding or units ignoring orders, including 32% of negative reviews and 11% of positive ones. The same examples recur: infantry staring at an enemy a few metres away, tanks turning their side armour to fire at infantry while an AT gun hits them, trucks and towed guns stuck on fences or trees, vehicles running over friendly units, crews that will not repair or lay all their mines. "You are essentially babysitting toddlers with machineguns." One reviewer credits update V1.066 with smarter AI, but the complaint is still common in recently updated reviews. Some players add that the enemy AI behaves better than their own: "Enemy AI is both cracked and braindead."
Crashes, memory errors and performanceHigh
16% of reviews describe crashes or performance problems, including 28% of negative reviews. The crash reports describe failures while loading conquest battles, the EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION error, games that stop launching after an update, and a handful of "failed to allocate memory" or out-of-memory errors even on machines with plenty of RAM. Performance complaints describe heavy RAM use, a CPU-bound engine, stutter in large battles and heavier newer DLC maps. "Super fun game if you can tolerate every other match crashing." A minority reports the opposite and says it runs well on older or low-end machines.
Enemy AI that spams units and seems to see everythingMedium
6% of reviews say the enemy wins through sheer numbers or by cheating, mostly in conquest: endless infantry and artillery waves, field-gun and AT spam, mortars with pinpoint accuracy, and units that seem to see through fog of war or bushes. "Conquest is just AI spamming as many troops as possible." Related complaints mention waiting out defence timers after every attacker is dead.
UI, controls, tutorial and the missing UI scaleLow
4.5% of reviews criticise the interface, controls or tutorial, and these complaints come mostly from new players. About a third of the reviews that raise UI scaling or 4K come from players with under two hours, and a few of them say they refunded because the interface was unreadable at high resolutions: "Devs still put out DLC, but still haven't added UI scaling years later." Others describe inconsistent mouse buttons, hard-to-find commands and a tutorial that explains too little, though some push through: "The tutorial is so bad that I almost dropped the game but kept coming back to it based on others recommendations and I'm glad I did."
Multiplayer lag, desync and lobbiesLow
4% of reviews complain about multiplayer: peer-to-peer hosting where one slow connection lags the whole lobby, desync errors, no matchmaking or ranked queue, and hosts who kick new or low-level players. "Do you want to game with your friends? Well guess what? Desync!" Some reviews recommend the game for single-player and co-op while warning readers off public matches.
Mods and updates that break each otherLow
3% of reviews describe mods or saves breaking: frequent patches that invalidate mods or conquest saves, mods that switch themselves off, load orders that must be edited in config files, and errors when friends try to play the same modded session. "Playing with mods is the hell behind the gate in the title."
File sizeLow
2% of reviews complain about the install size, which players put at 70 to 90 GB before mods, with large patches on top. One request: "Make game smaller plz"
No pause or save in single-player conquestLow
1% of reviews object that single-player conquest cannot be paused with orders or saved mid-battle, so a long battle must be finished in one sitting; one reviewer puts this down to the mode running on the multiplayer framework. "No pause function in single player, no idea why."
3. The player conversation
The conversation is warm and often joking, with plenty of one-liners about artillery, King Tigers and stolen tanks. Long reviews tend to be either enthusiastic breakdowns of conquest and the damage model or detailed lists of AI, pathfinding and stability faults. The two overlap more than the vote split suggests, because plenty of recommending reviews list the same AI and crash complaints.
Who raises what differs by experience. Negative reviews from players with under two hours most often mention the tutorial and controls, and some of them the unreadable UI at 1440p and 4K or crashes at launch. Negative reviews from players with 100 or more hours dwell on the systems they have lived with: unit AI and pathfinding first, then performance, crashes, DLC pricing, conquest balance and multiplayer desync. A few of these veterans call it one of their favourite games before explaining why they cannot recommend it.
Because this slice holds the most recently updated reviews, it cannot show how opinion moved over time. Some reviewers describe the game improving since launch, crediting an update for better AI logic or the latest sound overhaul. Others say the Western Front DLC maps run worse, or that a change to conquest's faction setup ruined the mode for them.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix unit AI and pathfinding first. Raised in 17% of reviews and a third of negative ones, the complaint comes with the same examples: units ignoring close enemies, tanks exposing their flanks and vehicles stuck on fences.
- Cut memory use and crash rates, especially when loading conquest. Crashes and performance problems appear in 16% of reviews and 28% of negative ones, and a handful report "failed to allocate memory" errors on well-equipped PCs.
- Rebalance conquest's enemy AI and defence timers. Players say the enemy wins through unit spam and perfect information, and resent waiting out a defence after every attacker is dead.
- Add UI scaling for 1440p and 4K and clarify the tutorial. New players who quit early point to these, and a few say the unreadable interface made them refund.
- Make DLC less of a wall in shared and core modes. A few reviews ask that co-op missions need only the host's DLC and that locked units stop crowding research trees, the most concrete requests in a DLC debate that touches 25% of reviews.
- Improve multiplayer connections and matchmaking. Reviewers cite peer-to-peer lag, desync and the lack of matchmaking as the reason they stick to single-player.
- Protect saves and mods across updates and add an in-game load order. Reviews describe patches that break conquest saves and mods, and load orders that must be fixed in config files.
- Allow pausing with orders and saving in single-player conquest. A smaller group says long battles that cannot be paused or saved keep them out of conquest.
