If you’ve been impatiently awaiting the arrival of Commandos: Origins since its announcement last year, here’s the next best thing; Claymore Game Studios’ revival of the classic WW2 real-time stealth-tactics series now has a PC and Xbox demo ahead of its release later this year.
The Commandos series, if your history is a little hazy, first surfaced in 1998 with the release of developer Pyro Studios’ classic (and rock-hard) Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines. Since then, there’ve been five additional instalments, the series eventually fizzling out with the launch of 2006’s first-person effort, Commandos: Strike Force.
Commandos: Origins, though, takes the series back to its roots, delivering a stealthy World War 2 prequel adventure in which players guide the original six-strong team of commandos through the likes of sabotage and assassination missions as they travel from European coastlines to icy Arctic plains and African deserts – all presented using the series’ classic isometric perspective, albeit now rendered in full 3D.
Commandos: Origins’ newly released demo (available for Steam, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X/S) isn’t taken directly from the upcoming game, instead being what publisher Kalypso Media is calling an “demo-exclusive test mission”. Here, players control squad members Jack O’Hara (Green Beret) and James Blackwood (The Marine) as they attempt to sabotage a German radar system, “against the backdrop of the Channel Islands during World War 2”.
The full game will include “more than 10” missions featuring both core and optional objectives – each completable in multiple different ways – with two-player local and online co-op support available for anyone wanting to get stuck in with a friend.
Commandos: Origins still doesn’t have a release date beyond “2024”, but it’ll be available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (via Steam and the Microsoft Store) when it does show up. And if you need to sate your thirst for real-time stealth tactics before then, you could always try your hand at this year’s pulpy alternate-history WW2 adventure Sumerian Six, or 2023’s piratical delight Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew.