Draft:Call to Arms - Gates of Hell

Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront is a real-time tactics/ strategy (RTT/ RTS) game made by independent game developers Barbedwire Studios, published by Digitalmindsoft. It was published on Steam June 11th, 2021.

It is set in world war 2 and is part of the Men of War series of games.

Development
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront is developed as a series of modules. The basic module (base game) is called “Ostfront”. It was published on june 11, 2021. This module depicts the events that unfolded when the German army invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa. This can be expanded with any of the DLCs (modules) that were developed as well.

DLC modules
For the game, 3 sets of Downloadable content are available.

“Talvisota” Depicts the Winter War, the Continuation war and the Lapland War. These were three separate conflicts that involved Finland and which took place between 1939 and 1945. This DLC was published in June 2022.

“Scorched Earth” Expands the Ostfront package. Published November 2022.

“Liberation” Adds the USA as a faction on the Western front, 1944 - 45. Published November 2023.

Reception
Several PC game review platforms and YouTube content creators reviewed Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront. German reviewer GameStar described how "Somewhere between Company of Heroes and Arma there is a World War II game that aims to combine accessibility and realism." Following an interview with the developers by Peter Bathge in june 2021. English- Czech reviewer Eurogamer praised the historical accuracy and novel game mechanics, but was critical of the autonomy of units and pathfinding. The original article (in Czech) is based on an interview with the developers, and on a Playtest by Eurogamer’s Milan Bergman in 2021.

Platforms
Gates of Hell is playable on Microsoft Windows PCs.

Engine
The game engine used for “Gates of Hell” is a 64bit evolution of the GEM-2 engine, licensed by Best Way Soft.