Steel Division 2 – Death on the Vistula DLC
Eugen Systems
Many real-time strategy fans were filled with anticipation when Steel Division 2 was announced over a year ago. The follow up to 2017’s excellent World War 2 RTS, Steel Division: Normandy 44, made gamers who had fallen in love with Eugen System’s new RTS baby on the block have some pretty high expectations for that game’s successor, this was probably due in no small part to the French game developer’s savvy marketing efforts. The promise of even larger battlefields, a vastly increased scale, and a new Army General mode that resembled something out of a Hearts of Iron title, was all pretty intriguing.
When SD2 finally debuted in June 2019, it was pretty well-received. Some folks, however, had issues with some of the new game’s mechanics. Many of the critics complained about the amount of artillery that the AI seemed to spam. Another issue seemed to center around the fact that there were so many units to micromanage all at once, that things could quickly spin out of control since there was so much going on.
To Eugen’s credit, they’ve since reduced the amount of AI arty spamming and have also introduced an ingenious new game mechanic called Smart Orders that lets the game’s AI take over much of the busywork of getting your units into position. The AI is also quite capable of doing such things as defending your units by returning fire if you’ve ordered them to do so. This has been a tremendous boon for the game, overall, and has apparently caused many gamers to return to the game. SD2’s servers have been pretty swole as of late.
Not one to rest on their laurels, Eugen has recently released their latest DLC for SD2, titled: Steel Division 2 – Death on the Vistula. Fairly priced at $14.99, Death on the Vistula comes jam-packed with all sorts of new goodies.
For those not in the know, SD2 takes place on the Eastern Front of World War 2, which culminated on Russia’s big counter-offensive called Operation Bagration. Germany had overextended its military and its supply lines began to deteriorate as it pushed deeper into Russian territory. Russian military leaders seized upon this unfortunate set of circumstances for the Germans and orchestrated Operation Bagration, which was their big push-back. This operation smashed through the weakened German Army, annihilating most of their divisions and completly decimated its front lines.
The Death on the Vistula DLC is focused on the final, tumultuous days of Operation Bagration. It greatly expands on the original game with lots of new content for its solo, coop and multiplayer modes, including a new massive Army General turn-based strategic campaign, four full new Divisions, 200+ new units, four new historical battles, and two exclusives aces. Here are some of the key features:
- A brand-new Huge Army General Campaign: Vistula, in which the freshly reinforced German forces will try to stop the Red Army’s attempt to liberate Warsaw.
- The ability for you to create new battlegroups with four new divisions: the 5. SS-Panzerdivision “Wiking”, the Fallschirm-Panzerdivision “Hermann Göring”, the Armia Krajowa, and 1st Polish “Tadeusz Kościuszki” Infantry Division.
- 200+ new units, including the Sturmtiger, the Fw 190 D9 “Long Nose”, the Bergepanther, the Kubuś.
- Four challenging new Historical Battles: River of Blood, Fighting Retreat, Escape from Brest and Memento Mori.
- Two Exclusive new Aces: Karl Nicolussi-Leck and his Panther A and The “Chwat” Jagdpanzer 38(t).
Personally, I was most excited to utilize the new Polish forces, the Armia Krajowa, and the 1st Polish “Tadeusz Kościuszki” Infantry Division. Steamrolled during the onset of World War 2, the demoralized Poles gathered their courage and fought back bravely against the weakened Germans during the Warsaw Uprising, and lived up to their long history of being ferocious, indomitable warriors.
In all, me and my gaming buddies are having a blast with the new Death on the Vistula DLC. It offers a ton of value for your buck and introduces some stellar content that adds a lot of replay value to the base game. I highly recommend it to all of my fellow WW2 armchair generals out there.
SCORE: 87%
The Steel Division 2 – Death on the Vistula DLC has some pretty good looking graphics that make its post-RTS gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
Visit CyberpowerPC’s website to check out all of the other great deals as well!