Unity of Command II reaches it's 8th DLC! Kursk is a rich DLC with two complete campaigns, Soviet and German, plus two separate alt-history tracks in the German campaign! The DLC releases on October 19th, and there are 31 scenarios in total. Given the size of the thing, we have raised our usual DLC price to $11.99 (please don't be mad).
Remarkably, this, one of our finest DLC, is the work of two designers entirely new to the series: prolific workshop contributor FrancenCZ and the youtube prodigy Hexaboo (yes, that guy). Please give them your support as they take over our community posts for a couple of developer diaries.
Tanks, Dashes, and Models
After two campaigns in North Africa and the Middle East and a colossal race around the Don Bend, it seems only fair that Unity of Command 2 stays on the Soviet-German Front, with a hefty expansion that lets you play as either of the sides in the fighting surrounding the Battle of Kursk and the epic events that came after it.
The Soviet campaign that gave the DLC its name covers a period between 4 July 1943 and somewhere in December 1943, going far beyond the fighting around the Kursk salient, the usual focus of this part of the war. From a hard-fought breakthrough at Smolensk, the liberation of Donbass that took two tries, and the elimination of the bridgehead at Taman, to the mad dash to the Dnieper and the increasingly tough maneuvering in the late-autumn mud around Gomel, Kiev, and Krivoy Rog.
Since this was a time of monumental successes for the Red Army, all of the missions in the Kursk campaign represent historical operations whose outcomes, with one notable exception, are in line with what actually happened. Similarly to Don 42, the secondary and challenge objectives we are so used to in Unity of Command either represent slightly optimistic deadlines for areas and cities ultimately liberated, or stand for secondary objectives set in the operation plans themselves. In fact, if you know how the actual operations took place, the campaign makes it possible to emulate the decisions and achieve success.
In contrast, given the lacklustre performance of the Wehrmacht during the period, the opposing-force Zitadelle campaign, just like every other German campaign in this game, invited a bit of a flight of fantasy, resulting in a historical and an alternative branch. The choice depends on how well you do in the increasingly precarious offensive and defensive engagements at the north and south faces of the Kursk salient. In the historical branch, you will find yourself other side of some of the missions in the Kursk campaign, although for the Germans, the fighting extends into 1944, with battles in Belarus and Korsun Pocket.
However, should Zitadelle succeed, you’ll get to travel around, with a renewed effort by Army Group North to take Leningrad and Karelia and a chance for you to command a bunch of Finnish troops. The other theatre is the impending disaster in Italy, a disaster you actually get to avert in the alternative branch. Once again, much attention is paid to Italian troops, which this time, fight for both sides.
New features at a glance
- Dozens of new and updated specialist steps, from Storm Sappers and Soviet recon troops, to Panzer IIIM and Brummbär, to handfuls and handfuls of Italian and Finnish specialists.
- Extra-nasty and difficult-to-suppress elite towed anti-tank gun specialists (Soviet Tank Destroyer Brigades and German 88mm Pak 43), for added horror in the offensives.
- Completely new and gorgeous models for Soviet Regular and Guards Infantry models. Valenki are back in style!
- Reskins of existing models, including the elegant and remarkable T-34 for the Finnish tank division.
- Expanded and updated main map, which now features a detailed and swampy Karelia and Finland, and more complex terrain in southern Ukraine.
- Zoomed-in maps for the city of Novorossiysk and the island of Leros: that’s right, you will get to enjoy a naval landing no matter which campaign you choose!
Closer than you think
The Kursk DLC is virtually completed and only needs some of that final beta-testing polish to make sure you enjoy it frustration-free once we release it on 19 October. And stay tuned for Dev Diary #2 if you are interested in how the campaigns came about, what kind of historical research went into them, and the ultimate question for the ages: is Unity of Command 2 a puzzle game?
Cheers,
FrancenCZ and Hexaboo