World War II is, easily, one of the most well-trodden conflicts in the gaming world. This is to be expected: Huge scale, awesome vehicles, and America, with the largest market cap of the video-game industry, was one of the good guys. (China is rapidly catching up and could eclipse the U.S. in 2024 or 2025, but it was also an Allied power.)
Not everyone makes the same World War II game, though, and dozens of studios have devised games set in alternate timelines where the Nazis successfully found occult technology, where diesel-powered mechs dominated the battlefield, or in which dinosaurs became the most important combatants. Eat your heart out, Hannibal.
Here are some of the best games that feature alternative histories of World War II:
1. ‘Wolfenstein’
In “Wolfenstein,” an Office of Secret Actions operative steals a medallion from a German officer, accidentally uses it to kill a German squad and then is sent to a remote German village to investigate it. There, he fights all sorts of supernatural monstrosities and stops a German occult program. Think “Hellboy,” but the overly muscled protagonist is human.
2. ‘Battlestations: Pacific’
While a lot of games on this list include experimental technology, monsters or dinosaurs (just keep reading!), “Battlestations: Pacific” has a simpler premise. You can play through the war in different, branching narratives. And one branch imagines what would happen if Japan inflicted the crushing blow at Midway, a reverse of the real outcome. You can rapidly switch from ordering units around the map to controlling individual units directly, so expect to drop a torpedo from a bomber just moments before you launch a full salvo from a battleship.
3. ‘Grit and Valor – 1949’
What if each World War II combatant had diesel-powered mechs? In “Grit and Valor -- 1949,” they do. The Axis deployed mechs and stayed in the war, eventually pressing the Allies back to the coast of Scotland and enslaving most civilians in Europe. Players control a squad of captured mechs in real time on a battlefield grid as they attempt to push the Nazis back and deliver an EMP to knock out enemy mech production.
4. ‘Command and Conquer: Red Alert’
The most-dated game on this list, “Command and Conquer: Red Alert” came out in 1996 and imagines that war broke out between the other Allies and the Soviet Union as World War II came to a close. (Eat your heart out, Patton’s ghost!) The game features technological advances, such as Apache attack helicopters and Tesla coils, lending funny moments. Each side has naval, air, and land units that differ significantly.
5. ‘Dino D-Day’
Probably my personal favorite alternate history on this list, “Dino D-Day” basically asks what would happen if Hitler learned how to create dinosaurs. In the multiplayer game, the Axis originally had the only dinosaurs, but the Allies eventually got their own. Now, players can take control of a T-Rex, velociraptor, protoceratops and more. The game has one major downside, though: It’s multiplayer only, and the player count rarely gets above 20 these days. So if you hop in, you will be surrounded by much more experienced adversaries.
6. ‘Zombie Army 4: Dead War’
Coming out in 2020, this game follows the “Zombie Army Trilogy.” The trilogy started an alternate timeline where Hitler, rather than killing himself in a bunker as Berlin fell, resurrected all fallen Nazis as Zombies and forced the Allies back. “Zombie Army 4” takes place after Hitler’s defeat, with the player investigating who now controls the zombie hordes and how the zombies are able to control weapons such as submachine guns (SMGs). The player eventually must invade Hell and fight the demons there. The game spun off from the “Sniper Elite” series and plays in a similar manner.
7. ‘War Front: Turning Point’
This World War II game imagines what would happen if the war in Europe went long, and numerous experimental technologies, some real like the Maus tank and some completely imagined like a shield-generating armored truck, were deployed. The 2007 game is obviously dated at this point, but its futuristic World War II combat is still a fun bit of chaos that lasts about 10 hours. The Soviet Union never joined the Allies in this history, and players can choose one of three factions: Allies, Germans or Soviets.
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