Call to Arms: Panzer Elite

PLEASE READ ALL, my initial words lead to constructive criticism and support later in the text. Much love to the developers and thank you for making my childhood great.

I am concerned to find out that some of the funds we paid to develop Call to Arms: Gates of Hell most likely went into this game. I don't even know where to begin on this. If the game was super realistic and you were a tank commander assaulting/defending on the battlefield and communicating with your platoon in a slow and realistic manner, this would be great and a great project to support. But what this is, is a worse and unappealing War Thunder you PAY for. It's just an open map with mindless AI running around, and honestly, this game really seemed like a lightbulb idea where in Gates of Hell, they added more features in manually controlling your tanks and they were like, "huh, this is pretty lit, maybe we can make a game out of this," and then began making a game for it and got lost.

This also includes unrealistic penetration mechanics where sometimes a tank gets one-shotted and other times crew members magically survive Armageddon being slammed into the tank. This should be like a $10 fundraiser game for a bigger project, and not $30 for a 2-FPS and buggy version where you mindlessly drive around and shoot enemies that either are gigachad sigma males who insta-lock through bushes, or sit and run in circles.

Mind you, I purchased the supporter bundle because I absolutely love and adore what these developers have created in Gates of Hell. What a beautiful game that is. My time on here is higher than what it shows, but through crashes my time has not been calculated, I guess. I've played multiple missions and have attempted to test features in the game.

I will state some positives so you know that your work has been appreciated and respected. Much love to the developers, and your work has really cheered up my childhood. I appreciate you all and please consider my thoughts in a brotherly way; I don't want this to fail.

WHAT I HOPE THE GAME WILL BECOME:

In the future, it would be fun to have a similar feeling playing this game as it does when playing as a tank crew in Hell Let Loose, or a similar tone to IL-2 Sturmovik's air battles where you're deployed and have a long-term objective with tons of communication with other forces. I don't want this game to be you driving around dealing with waves of enemies or being a one-man army (makes the game arcadey). The game should be slower, more in-depth, and make you fear even pushing up due to what the enemy can bestow.

WHAT I LIKE:

The vehicle engines and noises are superb. They make it super immersive. This is great, and actually many elements in this War Thunder players would envy! Awesome work! This is why I'm concerned that the quick gameplay can ruin it (all bark, no bite).

The tanks do need work on the physics and maneuverability, but they do feel really cool to play. It's fun to drive around in them and I do like the scope when you zoom in. The noises are fun to hear too.

Platoons are pretty neat. It's fun to watch your platoon follow you around. It was rather common for tanks to be in groups. This is uncommon in other tank games, so again another feature that is great.

Music and atmosphere is fantastic. The hangar music is a very nice touch. I was honestly just sitting in the hangar for a bit to listen in. Atmosphere-wise, it's got a good tone to it. Again, when the gameplay gets better, the atmosphere you've created will be an awesome touch.

Vehicle roster is nice. You get to play with historical and actually rather uncommon vehicles in this compared to other tank games, which is really cool! I'm looking forward to seeing more.

The focus on single-player and CO-OP gameplay for a tank game is a great and a unique approach compared to similar games such as War Thunder or World of Tanks. Definitely take advantage of this niche! And it's great that you added multiplayer PVP on the side so it's there too! Good well-rounded features and gameplay to start with. Good. Very good.

IMMEDIATE CHANGE NEEDED FEEDBACK:

Enemy vehicle icons – Remove them ASAP. Ruins the immersion and there is no point for cover if you see all enemies because of the map and icons through obstacles. Even if it can be toggled off, it shouldn't even be in the game in the first place. I hope they won’t be on the map either. That map should be a paper map with maybe your icon, but nothing else.

Stabilizer for your gun – I understand that realistically the gunner would have to stabilize the gun to accurately shoot, but it feels super awkward watching the cursor shrink. It really reminds me of World of Tanks. Doesn't feel right. I'd recommend playing Hell Let Loose and jumping into a tank to move the gun around. That aim and how difficult it is—that would be awesome to implement into this game instead of the current system. Please, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND shifting gears on this game and heading towards it being a simulator game rather than fast-paced. You will form a loyal player base to this, just as you did with Gates of Hell over immersive realism.

ADD A CONQUEST MODE!!!! – Excluding campaign with the crew, you should create an IL-2 Sturmovik campaign/Gates of Hell-inspired Conquest mode. Your dev team is great with making Conquest gamemodes, but the reason why I mention Sturmovik is that when you die in a campaign—you’re done. You fought in the war and passed away. Done! That would be great for this, but it would be for the platoon. So if one platoon tank survived, then you continue, but if the whole crew died, then back to 1939 Poland! Would be great to see this! ESPECIALLY IF YOU CAN PLAY IT WITH FRIENDS! WOULD BE FANTASTIC!

I've noticed that the AI tanks shoot through cover like they lock on to you, and it just doesn't feel right. If the tank was entrenched in cover/bushes and could see you, sure! But if you're spotted and they technically can shoot you but cannot actually see you from their view, it just makes things weird.

And sadly, please remove the AI voiceovers entirely for now. Not immersive and they are rather annoying. Y'all gotta go back to the drawing board on that one.

To the reader of this review, you can probably tell that it's the detail that I'm complimenting and not the gameplay. It is Early Access after all, and it's not a good start, but the feeling and Aura has a good start!

In my opinion, even for an Early Access game, this is drastically undercooked. It needs about 2 more years in the oven before even a beta should come out. This honestly feels like a sandbox with not much to do.

If I could give this a neutral rating right now, I would.

As a massive CTA:GOH fan, I really wanted to enjoy this, and it definitely has potential but it’s just not there yet. Here’s why:

I’m struggling to see where this game actually fits. We already have titles like World of Tanks, and I thought this might aim for a more realistic tank sim INSTEAD OF along the lines of WOT or War Thunder. Instead, it feels like more of the same, just with nicer graphics. Honestly, I don’t even see why it carries the CTA name if it has nothing to do with that series.

While the graphics initially look good, they break immersion fast. Ploughing through a bush makes it simply disintegrate, and fences vanish in a puff of pixels. There’s no weight or realism. Tank combat has some nice touches like penetration holes and smoke, but destroying a tank makes it do a cartoonish 'everything falls off' like an old vintage comedy film, explode into a fireball, and instantly become a burnt-out husk, a big step away from the feel of the original CTA strategy games where the hulls remain with the holes or fire pouring out the top.

Soldier deaths feel dated, with excessive 90s-style red mist effects. Even the older Call to Arms games had better physics and more believable animations.

The voice acting completely breaks immersion. I suspect they used AI voices (which is fine), but at least use a quality service like ElevenLabs. One tank crew member sounds exactly like Terry Tibbs from the comedy show Phone Jacker...and he’s meant to be German! Meanwhile, the German commander has an American accent. It just pulls you straight out of the experience.

I’m hoping future updates will address these issues, but right now, I can’t recommend it in its current state.

Nope. Just no.

Making an early access game (that plays, feels and looks like an early alfa) and locking half of the missions behind a day one DLC that costs as much as the base game, then when people call you out, say it's completely normal as you're preparing an "ultimate edition" and want EA players to have access to this content is pretty lame, scummy and downright dumb.

To think they took government funding for this is even more baffling.

All that funding and the voiceovers are badly sounding AI generated and marked as "placeholders". What the actual ♥♥♥♥?!

If you're coming from Ostfront and expect at least the same level of depth - this ain't it.

It's dumbed down WoT (yes it is possible), looking pretty and running like ♥♥♥♥, because it's poorly optimised and it's running UE5..

You don't have any progress, or goals to work toward to - you pick a vehicle, go into a mission, shoot, kill (or get killed), rinse and repeat and that's it. There's no upgrades to work toward to, no immersion, no nothing. Not to mention that the currently available content is very little to justify the price (with the DLC) and devs stated they will not be adding official mod support or workshop - pretty much a formula for dead on arrival.

To make something so mediocre and so poorly executed, when there are games like Tank Squad and Gunner, Heat, PC is just throwing money away, especially when you have masterpieces like Ostfront under your name.

Pity..

Refunding for now and going back to the above mentioned actually properly executed games. Don't know if I will be at all interested to return for full release at all.