Combat Mission: Fortress Italy Demo

The Combat Mission series has a long history of providing strategy fans with hardcore and realistic World War II battle simulations, complete with rigorous, but efficient turn-based mechanics. Now this latest expansion pack aims to provide you with a whole new array of campaigns and scenarios, as well as brand new locations and units.

Combat Mission: Fortress Italy, as the name implies, allows you to experience the war throughout Italy as well, namely on the island of Sicily and nearby territories. Although they might not be as famous as other battles, the German, American and Italian forces went head to head against each other in gruesome battles that left more than its fair share of destruction and lifeless bodies behind.

Beside the already existing unit types and vehicles that were made popular throughout the Combat Mission series, you can also control new ones, such as the American Rangers, the German Herman Goring Division and the Italian Bersaglieri. Naturally, they all have different special abilities that can be used on the battlefield, as well as a specific look and design, in order to make themselves more distinguishable.

As far as the actual gameplay improvements are concerned, one of the biggest change is the addition of movable waypoints, which makes for much more dynamic troop control and provides you with far more strategic options. The units can now auto-assemble roads or walls when the time is right, while the camera can now jump directly to groups in a more efficient manner.

Visually, there aren't too many modifications to talk about, except for the fact that the rendering shaders have been completely re-done all across the board, which should make the game look a bit better. On the other hand, lot of work went into improving the frame rates and optimizing the engine itself, in order to get rid of any inconveniences that might arise during slightly more intense moments.

In the end, Combat Mission: Fortress Italy brings all the right elements together when it comes to a successful expansion, including a new campaign, new units and an improved overall experience. Thus, any fan of the series should be more than happy with the game, while newcomers can find everything they need as well in order to get started.