Yonan
ICBM: Escalations first DLC, Endless October adds a new 11 mission campaign where you play as Soviet Russia in an alternate history Cold War gone hot. You’ll face off against a number of enemies including the US, your erstwhile allies in China, and more as you lob missiles and shells from every platform possible across the massive territories these nations hold, and the oceans and skies between them.
Endless October is purely the one eleven mission campaign – if you only enjoy the Standoff, Conquest or Blitz modes, there is nothing here for you. That said, if you enjoy campaigns, you get another one the same size and quality as the one that came with the base game (reviewed here) but this time from the Soviet side. The campaign is well paced with a nice variety of scenarios covering size, location, and enemy. Some missions can take repeating or save-scumming until you get a grip on the requirements of the scenario.
Unlike a traditional RTS where you can shift from one strategy to another relatively reasonably, it can take too long to reorient when production can take 5 minutes for a single building, which also locks you out of getting any reinforcements. This is generally a good thing as it rewards longer term planning, but the starting bonus each successive mission is chosen before you’re briefed on that mission – tough luck if you chose a large air force and army only to need a large navy to transit the Atlantic Ocean.
Despite that minor gripe, the meta progression between campaign missions where you retain your research and get to spend points on units or research based on your performance in the previous mission is enjoyable. It helps delineate the game from the more standard Command and Conquer or Starcraft style RTS. You also get that feeling of time progressing between missions as the technology improves, resulting in your units performing differently, in addition to having new units and other options available (and pitted against you).
I’m more a fan of the skirmish style sandbox gameplay than of the scripted campaigns, but this was an enjoyable playthrough especially for the price. The Cold War has a certain romance, as does the alternate history path of “what if communism could actually work?” and it was nice to play as the bad guys, controlling the massive territory of Soviet Russia. If you enjoyed the campaign in the base game and want more, this is the DLC for you. If you only care for the sandbox gameplay then this is probably a miss outside of a substantial discount.
This review utilised a key provided by Slitherine and ICBM Escalation: Endless October is available now on Steam for $AU10.25 ($US6.99) on Steam. Also check our review for the base game here!
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Chris Inglis