Men Of War II

Platform(s): PC
Genre: Strategy
Publisher: Fulqrum Publishing
Developer: Best Way
Release Date: May 15, 2024

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'Men Of War II' Kicks Off Final Beta Weekend

by Rainier on Aug. 10, 2023 @ 8:34 a.m. PDT

After spawning multiple expansions and spin-offs since Men Of War’s debut, Men Of War II returns to the series’ roots to rebuild and redefine real-time strategy gameplay.

The new Front Line mechanic is the bedrock of exciting dynamic encounters, where the push-and-pull of each skirmish directly affects territory borders. Manage attritional battles and break through undefended lines to advance the areas of maps under control, digging trenches and supporting troops in newly won territory.

Assume greater command of the battlefield with the enhanced Direct Vision feature to focus solely on one unit at any time and upgrade, change, or repair equipment on the fly. Level the theater of war with powerful armor and artillery capable of destroying buildings and weapon emplacements, while choosing from an arsenal including 45 battalions and more than 300 vehicles, all painstakingly designed with complete historical accuracy.

Two story campaigns – playable in single-player or up to five-player online co-op – let commanders engage in battle on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. Take control of the courageous Allied Forces pushing their way through a devastated France, and the steadfast Soviets defending their lands from the menacing Third Reich army. In returning to World War II, Best Way shines a spotlight on battles and scenarios never-before-seen in the series, with conflicts such as the Battle of the Falaise pocket and Operation Bagration.

Fulqrum Publishing and Ukrainian studio Best Way announced the Final Beta weekend for Men of War II has started, running from August 10 until  August 14th.

This Final Beta weekend marks the third time fans will have access to the game ahead of the release on September 20th, 2023, via Steam, Epic Games Store and other digital store fronts. It will be available to download for free via the Men of War II Steam page, where players can immediately head to and sign up for access today. 

During the open beta, players will be able to experience Men of War II’s Classic Modes, a highly-requested feature from the community, which will take players back to the multiplayer experience of previous Men of War games. Players will be able to simply select which nation they want to play as, and will immediately have access to all that nation’s units in each match. There are no battalions and echelons, with the player calling in their forces based on a combination of each unit’s individual timer, as well as the player’s own pool of resources.

Meanwhile, fans looking for a new experience can check out the Realism Mode, which offers a higher chance of disabling and capturing enemy vehicles, fewer visual cues concerning the visibility and health of their units, a more limited range of fire for weapons and many more gameplay changes. 

This Final open Beta is based on community feedback from thousands of players who have already played, tested, and provided their thoughts on the previous two public tests on everything from unit balance to optimization improvements. The version in this Beta will closely mirror the full release experience, with further features, lots of content, and other modes added at launch. The developers will continue to work on polishing and balancing based on fresh player feedback from this Beta. Players' progress and saves in this open beta test will not carry over to release.

The full list of content available in the open beta is as follows:

Men of War II - Open Beta Content:

4x PvP Competitive Multiplayer Modes

  • Assault Zones
  • Combat
  • Front Line
  • Incursion

1x PvP Competitive Battle Mode

  • Combined Arms

1x PvE Mode

  • Line Defense

7x Maps

  • Airfield
  • Bazerville
  • Borovaya River
  • Carpathians
  • The Coast
  • Farmland
  • Winter March

3x Single Player / Co-op Missions

  • Ambush
  • Battle of Coisson
  • Towards Freedom

Men of War II - Changes & Fixes:

  • A new enhanced lighting engine with new skyboxes and better quality of existing content.
  • Bunkers, pillboxes, and observation towers can now be built as defensive structures on all maps.
  • New animations for various units and situations, such as artillery reloading and infantry dying in the water.
  • New buildings were added to maps, including a supply depot, infirmary, fuel station, and cranes.
  • New models for artillery shells, grenades, and bombs.
  • Various new sound effects.
  • Improved pathfinding for vehicles.
  • Balancing and refinement to single-player missions.
  • Performance improvements.
  • Bug fixes, general polish, and small tweaks.

Prepare to face enemy armies in intense bouts of all-out war in the series’ most advanced online multiplayer mode yet. Select the Allies, Soviets, or Germans and engage against other commanders’ armies. Choose from a wide range of skirmish and challenge maps, each created with strict attention to detail, making each arena authentic to the time period. Commanders can also join forces with other armies in online co-op, sending combined units against the new-and-improved AI in bloody mass combat.

The ravaged battlefields of Europe are enhanced with realistic physics and fully destructible objects, letting generals shape the warzone to their liking. Immersive sound design captures the guttural, terse, and chaotic cacophonies with lifelike explosions, the chattering of machine guns, and the treads of German Panzers. Full mod support gives commanders endless opportunities in creating new battle scenarios with a special level design and modding toolset.

Key Features:

  • Single-player narrative Campaigns
    • The American campaign, ‘The Falaise Pocket’, sees players taking on the role of Allied troops facing the task of eliminating German forces west of the Seine.
    • Thwarted Blitzkrieg’ is the Soviet campaign, and follows an almost hopeless situation for the USSR, as they struggle to slow the encroaching German tank forces.
    • In the German campaign, ‘On Their Own Soil’, players act as an old soldier amidst the collapse of the Third Reich, following the difficult road of retreat and loss, in a war that was never truly his own.
  • Historical Campaigns: In addition to the narrative campaigns, players will be given the ability to dive deeper into true historical operations with American ‘Operation Overlord’, the Allied operation into Western Europe and Soviet ‘Operation Bagration’, a large-scale Soviet offensive against Nazi Germany, through a series of related missions. These historical campaigns offer the player more dynamic choices when choosing their battalions and units to defeat the enemy threat.
  • Raids and Conquest: Two further campaign modes offer even more variety. The first being Raids, which are a series of 16 randomly generated battles, where players progress by conquering their opponents and upgrading their battalions with currency won in each subsequent round of combat. Conquest offers a truly dynamic campaign in which the player chooses a path for their army, in an attempt to conquer territory. These attempts are challenged by AI battalions, who will be consistently counter-attacking in an intense fight to capture it back. This advanced AI can also be utilised in any map or multiplayer mode.
  • Multiplayer Mobilised!: Men of War II will also showcase over 20 hand-crafted multiplayer maps, 5 dedicated PVE game modes, and 13 game modes for PVP.Regarding PVE experiences, all single-player content will also be playable in co-op with up to 4 other players, bringing a true Allied experience as players join forces with friends to ambush their adversaries.
  • Robust Mod Support: Action never stops thanks to a significantly redesigned and modified GEM RTS engine, with a comprehensive editor and full mod support at launch, Men of War II is primed to keep growing with community-created content for years to come.

Men Of War II will be available for PC (Steam, Epic Games Store and other stores) on September 20, 2023.


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