Partisans 1941 is a real-time tactics and stealth game set during World War 2. Even if you have played a ton of games like this, you might find the more scaled-back gameplay of this a breath of fresh air. It deals with an interesting side of the war and I found myself pretty invested in what was going on.
How to Download Partisans 1941
To download the game from Steam, please click on the Download button at the end of this review.
The Game Review
The main character in the game is Alexey Zorin you are a red army commander and you are trying to fight back the Nazi invasion of Russia. The story may start off slow, but I thought it was a fantastic side of World War 2 that we do not really get to play through all that much in games.
As you progress through the game, you will add more and more characters to your squad. What I liked about this was that each character felt special in their abilities and also their personality. Towards the end of the game, you have quite the army at your disposal and you are able to make some very diverse squads to take into missions.
The combat in the game is something I really did enjoy. I will say that it is easier and more basic than many other tactics games, but I liked this! You will want to take down as many of the enemies with stealth as you can. Of course, gunfights are not uncommon, but you can take down a whole squad with stealth if you are careful, which can be done thanks to the AI not being the smartest.
The maps that the missions take place on are very open. I liked how you are encouraged to explore each area you find yourself in. You do this and you can come across some pretty awesome loot such as more powerful weapons. Speaking of the weapons, I thought it was cool how you could upgrade the weapons in the game.
The progression in the game is very simple. Each character does have a skill tree, but they are quite small. The skills you unlock do make a difference, but I liked how the skill trees were not over bloated with stuff. No matter who scores the kills during a mission, each party member will get XP for it so the leveling up happens at a pretty quick rate.
As well as the combat, Partisans 1941 has two other things you need to do. There is base building in the game and the more people you add to your squad the better this becomes. It does start off slow, but eventually, you will have people making buildings, cooking, resting, and so on. Managing the base was fun and never felt overwhelming, plus it can have benefits to the combat.
You also have to do some resource management as well. Like the rest of the game, this is easy enough to figure out and never becomes frustrating. You can find items during the missions that you can use back at the base and then these items can help you during combat, so it is a circle of life kind of thing.
The presentation is not bad, but it is not great either. The game has a rather “basic” look to it, but it still gets the message across. One area where it does excel is the voice acting. While I liked the story, I think it was the voice acting that really got me invested in what was happening.
There are only two gripes that I have with the game. The loading times can be pretty brutal, sometimes the game will load quickly, but when you want to do a quick load after a failed mission it can on occasion take way too long. The UI is also rather unappealing, the whole game is rather simple, but the UI is a bit convoluted for my taste.
I had a great time playing through Partisans 1941. It features a fantastic World War 2 story that is based on the Russian side of things. The gameplay may be a bit simple for “hardcore” tactics fans, but that is actually one of the main things that I really liked about the game. I highly recommend you give this one a try as it is a lot of fun.
