Many shooters cover the big battles that people care about: Iwo Jima, Bastogne, arguing on Twitter like you’re arguing with Uncle Greg at Thanksgiving dinner and this time he’s going to admit you’re right. But what if you could go to a battleground that hadn’t been run into the (battle)ground? The Italian Front during World War 1 might be just the ticket. There’s nothing like a theater of war where there were six battles along a single river, legendarily brutal alpine fighting, and tons of casualties for very little gain. Oh yeah, it’s all comin’ together.
Isonzo
Developer: M2H, Blackmill Games
Price: $30
Platform: PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Playstation 5, PS4
MonsterVine was supplied with Steam code for review
Isonzo feels like a throwback in the best way. It feels like you’ve logged into a random mod server circa 1997, back before every shooter had to be The Next Great ESport with a 9 figure marketing spend. You’re playing a game set on an obscure front of a disliked war, shooting a bolt action rifle over iron sights, getting hit by guys you can’t even see, and very few people have their Youtube handle in their name. It’s brilliant. It’s actually the third in a World War 1 series and if this is any indication of the quality, I’d say they’re all pretty accurate. I usually didn’t know what was going on, there were gas and bullets flying around, the dying were screaming, and all I knew was I wanted to kill the bastards shooting at me.
It’s a class-based shooter and the classes include:
Rifleman: You carry a rifle, real shocker. Since this is World War 1, that means it’s 8 feet long and weighs 20 pounds.
Officer: You order people around and call in artillery and gas. While you don’t have a rifle, you are critical if you want to get the troops moving.
Engineer: You build stuff like cover and barbed wire and ruin things other people have built.
Assault: You get higher-impact weapons to charge and storm trenches, but still get gunned down a lot.
Mountaineer: The big thing here is you get binoculars and periscopes. Those don’t sound exciting, but remember, very few people have zoom or scopes, so putting a little mark over a dude’s head is a huge win for your team.
Marksman: These are your classic sick snipers, but you better be as good at noscopes as you say because you’re noscoping until you unlock scopes.
There’s a class limit on each class aside from Rifleman, which neatly avoids the issue of your entire team deciding to be sick headshotting snipers, but does bring up the issue of “What if your officers suck?” Having read about World War 1, that’s also called historical accuracy.
On that note, the developers say they’ve done their research and all weapons, maps, and squads are as historically accurate as possible. I’ve never been in World War 1, but it certainly feels right. It’s terrifying, you never know what’s going on, and you’re frequently choking to death on poison gas, strafed by an airplane, blown up by artillery, or gunned down by a machine gun. It feels right to me, that’s all I’m saying. There are also an excellent variety of mustaches to choose from.
The maps cover a lot of shell-cratered ground: urban combat; tunnels and trenches; clambering up a mountainside to shoot down at the others. You will, if you are wise, move in quick bursts while hopping from shellhole to trench to dugout. Or you’ll forget to do that and get shot by someone across the map. Or you’ll go “Hey, is that…oh yeah I think that’s an enem…oh shit he’s raising his rifle…ah fuck I’m dead.”
Obviously, Isonzo isn’t for everyone, which is why it feels like a throwback to an era before every shooter had to be a system seller. I can’t promise you’ll be good, I certainly am not. But if you want to vibe to the era of PC gaming where weirdos made mods because it was fun and you never knew if it would be good or everything set to fulbright and 0 gravity (which is to say great), ENLIST TODAY.
The Final Word
I feel like you know if you want to give a World War 1 shooter a try. This is a niche thing and you know if you’re in it. Also hi, haven’t seen you at the niche meetings.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
