What are the perfect WW2 video games? Probably the most devastating battle in our species’ historical past of combating over land and ideologies has been distilled into heroic expenses, tense dogfights, epic digital wars, and savage battles many instances over. The best era deserves solely the best video games, and we have compiled a listing of the highest World Battle II video games to play proper now.
Our record of World Battle 2 video games may have one thing for you, whether or not you are on the lookout for the grittiness of a seaside touchdown, the technique of battle planning, the joys of an aerial dogfight, or the extraordinary camaraderie skilled by a band of brothers. So from huge, free-to-play vehicular battlefields to advanced technique, you are certain to search out one thing beneath to maintain you duking it out for numerous hours in our round-up of the best WW2 video games on PC. We kick off our record with some free titles, earlier than transferring onto some actual classics and Steam favorites.
The perfect WW2 video games in 2025 are:
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World of Tanks
Wargaming’s flagship free-to-play WW2 sport is obsessive about tanks, therefore the title World of Tanks. It is stuffed with extremely detailed artillery platforms and caterpillar tracks so that you can drool over earlier than rolling into battle. A whole bunch of those superb machines might be researched, unlocked, and bought as you achieve expertise and sources from each tense match.
World of Tanks is a sport you may dip your toes into, play for a bit, and have enjoyable. On the floor, it is easy and arcade-like, however beneath the chassis is the loud, indignant engine of one thing extra critical. How weak is the machine gun port of the Tiger II? The place are the mushy spots on the indomitable IS-3? What’s the efficient armor thickness of the T-32’s higher glacis? Armour penetration, angles, weak spots – that is the stuff it’s good to know.
To style victory time after time, work your means up the tank tiers, and finally get your title on leaderboards, it’s good to make a big time funding. It could really feel a bit like work if this weren’t a sport about blowing up tanks, which by no means stops being enjoyable. And with fixed updates, new maps, modes, options, and an viewers of tons of of thousands and thousands of gamers, you are all the time studying. It won’t be essentially the most reasonable sport at instances, nevertheless it’s simply probably the greatest tank video games on PC – and likewise on cell for those who play World of Tanks: Blitz.
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Battle Thunder
World Battle 2 was a mixed arms effort, with land, sea, and air forces providing equally invaluable efforts, and Battle Thunder really captures that. It initially threw a highlight on the conflict’s colossal aerial battles however quickly went on to incorporate land battles via the medium of noisy tank warfare and naval efforts by way of its sea-based enlargement.
Boasting a dizzying variety of traditionally correct plane, tanks, and boats from just about each nation concerned within the conflict, this distinctive free-to-play WW2 sport provides an incredible multiplayer expertise that neatly sits within the center floor between advanced simulation and arcade fighter. Like a sim, Battle Thunder has unimaginable consideration to element that makes it compelling to play. Every machine feels genuinely completely different, and all provide challenges. And even while you’re not within the warmth of battle, there are strategies to think about, equivalent to stocking your hangars with varied new automobiles and upgrading them to fit your method.
Developer Gaijin Leisure has expanded every of its fight varieties, so you may learn our Battle Thunder naval fight information or our newbie’s information to Battle Thunder tank battles for those who want some assist studying the fundamentals.
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Enlisted
Following within the footsteps of the massively profitable Battle Thunder, Gaijin Leisure’s newest title is a free-to-play multiplayer shooter that lands you smack bang in the course of WW2. You will battle your means via atmospheric recreations of key battles, construct and develop your squad of AI troopers, and – after all – plow your means via the terrain in a wide range of armored automobiles.
You are additionally free to construct fortifications and deploy gear wherever on the map slightly than counting on designated areas to assist push your facet towards victory. And for those who love your historical past to be as correct as your purpose, the meticulously recreated weaponry and automobiles are an extra pleasure within the free sport – you will solely have entry to the gear that was accessible on the time of every historic marketing campaign.
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World of Warships
The third of Wargaming’s WW2 video games, World of Warships, sees the tried-and-tested components of World of Tanks transposed to the ocean. It isn’t simply World of Tanks with ships, although, because the swap to naval fight has knowledgeable many huge adjustments. These sea battles are slower, extra considerate, and finally extra tactical than their land-based counterparts.
Out within the open sea, there is a sense of dread and vulnerability that you just simply do not get in Wargaming’s different titles. Not this extreme, anyway. There isn’t any hiding or operating away in World of Warships – simply plans, a few of which can disintegrate, and others that might, with some assist out of your crew, result in a wonderful victory.
Air assist provides an additional attention-grabbing wrinkle. You may hurl the fighters and bombers positioned in your decks at your foes, and immediately the sport begins to really feel like an RTS. However one the place you are additionally frantically making an attempt to line up your killer cannons and praying to Poseidon that this time, this time, it’s going to be a direct hit. That’s what makes it probably the greatest WW2 video games on PC. On high of all this, Wargaming additionally does a terrific job of updating the sport, with expansions including new ships like a Pan-Asian line of destroyers to the sport, to not point out the occasional World of Warships seasonal occasion.
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Name of Battle: World Battle II
Do you ever take a look at the Second World Battle and marvel how issues would have turned out if sure international locations had determined to make completely different selections? Properly, in Name of Battle: World Battle II, you and numerous different gamers take management of ten completely different nations because the conflict unfolds, and it is as much as you to resolve how they proceed. Maybe you will concentrate on forging alliances and constructing your financial system via new analysis. Or perhaps you have simply obtained a thirst for conquest?
Each playable nation is a little bit bit completely different. They’ve entry to completely different sources, they usually can produce the munitions that they might have truly used throughout that interval of historical past. Video games might be lengthy and sophisticated, however for those who’re on the lookout for a extra cerebral WW2 sport, and one that may actually provide you with an opportunity to flex your strategic muscle tissues, then it is best to undoubtedly strive Name of Battle: World Battle II – because it’s free, there is not any cause to not give it a go.
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Metal Division 2
Should you’re not into hardcore wargames and are on the lookout for a extra hands-on WW2 technique sport, then Metal Division 2 ticks quite a lot of packing containers. Happening on the Japanese Entrance of WW2, Metal Division 2 focuses closely on the supply materials, translating each facet of the horrid battle between Axis and Russian forces into its gameplay. Soviet conscripts are considerable however typically poorly geared up and yield below an excessive amount of stress. The SS troops, however, provide an incredible deal extra effectivity however lack vitality and enthusiasm after months spent combating within the harsh Russian winter.
Very like the primary sport, Metal Division: Normandy ’44, the sequel is peerless relating to representing the dimensions of warfare. It provides giant maps with strict, unnatural borders to provide you a cross-section of a large-scale fight operation. You may have tanks, troops, and plane below your management, however your focus is all the time on the battlefield slightly than the place you are drawing these forces from.
The Military Basic mode is a neat contact, which does a superb job mixing RTS story campaigns with the long-form strategic selections you’d usually discover in probably the greatest conflict or grand technique titans. These 4 mini-campaigns take you thru the Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation that noticed Soviet forces lastly break via the Axis stranglehold, with a lot of the motion happening on a strategic map.
Hidden & Harmful 2
Hidden & Harmful 2 could also be an ageing veteran that wants a stick to remain cell today, however its tales of silent heroics, undercover operations, and daring strikes have been unmatched within the 15 years since its launch.
Rainbow Six for 1944, Hidden & Harmful 2 is a tactical squad shooter with all of the trimmings we’re clamoring for within the fashionable period: permadeath, persistent characters, detailed operation loadout screens, and absolutely open maps with mission targets to be accomplished any means you fancy. Main a squad of 4 stiff-upper-lipped SAS officers, there’s a fascinating number of missions that take you to each theatre of the conflict, from a snowy top-secret analysis base to the dense jungles of Burma.
The extent of freedom is akin to Hitman: Blood Cash (there’s even the choice to strip enemies and steal their clothes), and the dearth of enforced silence means when issues go belly-up, you may crack open the heavy machine weapons and easily homicide your means out. The controls and programs are all pretty clunky, and the AI of your squadmates isn’t as much as scratch, however the thrill of the Hidden & Harmful marketing campaign is completely value pushing via the niggles for.
Hell Let Unfastened
If you’re on the lookout for breadth and reasonable particulars, then this newcomer could also be precisely what you are on the lookout for. Launched in 2021, it is a extra hardcore WW2 FPS sport that seeks to advertise teamwork over kills and provides us the Battlefield-style WW2 expertise that Battlefield itself could not fairly handle with its most up-to-date return to the battle.
100-player battles throughout 9 completely different maps and two separate sport modes allow you to take one in every of 14 distinctive roles to revel within the final WW2 expertise. No two matches are ever the identical, both, as issues like seize factors are dynamically generated for every session. There is a cause we gave it very excessive marks in our Hell Let Unfastened evaluate, the place WW2 aficionado Ian Boudreau said: “Hell Let Unfastened’s advanced interaction of FPS motion and real-time tactical planning rewards communication, coordination, and real management in a means few different video games even try.” Ensure you test it out if you have not already.
Name of Responsibility 2
When it launched in 2005, Name of Responsibility 2 was a jolt of electrical energy utilized to the WW2 components. Acquainted scenes just like the D-Day landings have been recreated in better element, with extra drama and a nail-biting sense of vulnerability. And, on the time, it was the perfect the conflict had ever appeared.
With 4 campaigns throughout three theatres, the worldwide scope of the conflict was on show. Like the unique Name of Responsibility, it adopted British, American, and Russian troops but additionally offered the North African marketing campaign for the primary time, because the Brits fought throughout the desert, melting and dying and hiding from tanks.
Regardless of being over 15 years outdated, COD2 has stood the check of time because of the truth that it was one of many first video games so as to add options like regenerating well being, so you may concentrate on the battle and never fear about scurrying round on the lookout for well being kits. And with improved ally AI, it actually felt such as you have been main correct troopers – all of them named – slightly than senseless fashions with weapons connected to them. Not simply probably the greatest WW2 video games, Name of Responsibility 2 is likely one of the greatest FPS video games on PC.
Firm of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault
As our Firm of Heroes 2 evaluate factors out, regardless of capturing the horror of winter warfare, the RTS sequel did not fairly hit the identical excessive notes as its venerable predecessor. However with the standalone enlargement of Ardennes Assault, Relic reinvigorated the single-player portion of the sequence, giving it one in every of its most attention-grabbing campaigns and regaining the WW2 RTS video games crown.
It’s all concerning the dynamic map. The Ardennes area is one huge, continually shifting warzone, with the Germans making an attempt to lock down as a lot territory as potential. Controlling the US forces of Baker, Ready, and Canine Firm – all with distinctive mechanics and strengths – gamers should power the Germans out, little by little, in a determined, bleak marketing campaign. It isn’t nearly profitable battles; a victory does not matter if it has value you all of your veteran models and left the remainder of your power tattered and weak. A Pyrrhic victory spells doom to your marketing campaign.
Random goals and occasions can crop up in battles and on the marketing campaign map itself, so no marketing campaign is alike. You may be tasked with assassinating an officer throughout a mission or ambushing a convoy on the marketing campaign map, and failure or victory may have a tangible impression on the remainder of the conflict. It’s a persistent, savage conflict, the place failure is all the time nipping on the heels of the more and more determined US forces. With particulars like that, no marvel it is likely one of the greatest WW2 video games on PC.
Commandos 2: Males of Braveness
They do not make them like this anymore, and that could be a tragedy. Commandos 2: Males of Braveness is over 20 years outdated however stays completely unsurpassed. It’s a puzzle sport, primarily. You management a gaggle of operatives behind enemy traces throughout ten elaborate, advanced, devilishly laborious missions.
Every mission is a large, sprawling factor with a superbly detailed, liberating map and tough goals that require quite a lot of planning, scouting, smarts, and a spot of trial and error. Aims run the gamut from stealing paperwork and rescuing spies to blowing up ships and stealing automobiles. Numerous patrols, guards, minefields, and even harsh climate are getting in the way in which of that. Fortunately, the Commandos have various methods up their sleeves.
You may have a spy who can steal garments and disguise himself because the enemy, a undercover agent who can distract and drug Nazis, and a battle-hardened Inexperienced Beret who likes to get a little bit of blood on his arms. You actually have a canine, Whisky, and he’s each pleasant and good at drawing the eye of enemies. Every mission offers you a particular group to make use of, after which it’s as much as you ways you wish to go about finishing the principle, secondary, and bonus goals. It’s this type of freedom that makes Commandos 2 not simply probably the greatest WW2 video games on PC however probably the greatest PC video games of all time, interval.
Pink Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
As a lot as video games like Brothers in Arms and World of Tanks purpose for historic accuracy of their weapons, equipment, and areas, they nonetheless provide a Hollywood-tinted depiction of the motion. Pink Orchestra 2 removes the filters and provides an unflinchingly troublesome simulator shooter. Heroes of Stalingrad recreates battles from the Japanese Entrance in a Battlefield-like mixed arms setting with soldier courses and automobiles. Throwing spray-and-pray, gung-ho attitudes to the wind, Pink Orchestra calls for strict teamwork, warning, and a thought of tactical method to goals.
It’s the hardships of being a person cog within the machine that make Pink Orchestra compelling. Machine gunners are very important for protecting fireplace, permitting different gamers to advance down the sector. However holding down the set off too lengthy causes the barrel to soften and buckle, requiring it to get replaced in a prolonged upkeep animation. Tanks are homicide machines when absolutely crewed, however for those who try to commandeer one by your self, you’ll discover your self a sitting goal as you try to purpose your cannon. In addition to the stresses of being a part of a crew, as a person, you will should continually depend your rounds as a whole lack of HUD, which removes any indication as to what’s left in your journal.
Every spherical of Pink Orchestra 2 is difficult work, however like ARMA and different bullet-physic heavy taking pictures simulations, there is a distinct, unequalled sense of victory with each level scored. Few WW2 video games make you’re employed this tough for a single kill. Should you’re extra within the Pacific battle, then there’s even a non secular successor from Tripwire Interactive referred to as Rising Storm, which is simply as brutally reasonable.
Silent Hunter III
The Second World Battle is continuously depicted as a violently bloodthirsty, explosive, and ear-drum-bursting battle. However not each factor of all-out conflict is noisy or fast-paced. For the quiet, thought of, cold-blooded killers on the market, there’s nothing fairly like Silent Hunter’s distinctive model of stealth. Throw out your undercover OSS brokers and submerge your self in underwater naval warfare.
Silent Hunter III, regardless of being over a decade outdated, stays probably the greatest WW2 video games and permits you to command a U-boat stuffed with German sailors below the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Freeform missions merely inform you of targets and naval site visitors, permitting you to conduct the operation in no matter conniving method you so want. You will have to be map savvy; Silent Hunter is a kind of gloriously uncompromising submarine video games, and with out strong navigation expertise, you will be firing torpedoes into the open ocean as an alternative of the facet of an Allied service provider ship. Persistence is the important thing ingredient, although, as you lurk in wait and your plan slowly comes collectively.
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Freeway
The Brothers in Arms video games provide a few of the greatest tales within the WW2 area of interest, full of private tales of battle and camaraderie. Hell’s Freeway, the third within the BiA sequence, brings the troubles of the a hundred and first Airborne’s Matt Baker to a detailed with a harrowing story that emphasizes the relentless lack of life each soldier was pressured to endure, evoking the likes of Saving Non-public Ryan and Band of Brothers.
Backing up the story is a incredible FPS sport. It borrows the third-person cowl system of the Rainbow Six: Vegas video games, making the squad techniques a a lot smoother, more practical factor. Battle is hell in Brothers in Arms, and the methodical employment of flanking maneuvers and suppressing fireplace is the one means you’ll survive it. Due to the tight-knit relationships Hell’s Freeway weaves over its marketing campaign, by the top, you’ll actually really feel as for those who helped pull your comrades via the dust.
And rattling, is it grim. Grisly, too. Physique components are blown off; males are changed into bloody luggage of meat – it is nasty stuff. It doesn’t really feel like Hell’s Freeway revels within the gore, although. It feels extra like an try to current conflict as a horrible, traumatizing state of affairs that try to be glad you might be experiencing on a PC slightly than in actuality.
Battlefield 1942
With Battlefield 1942, it felt just like the FPS style was evolving. Till DICE launched the primary in what can be an everlasting sequence, multiplayer video games have been largely involved with the glory of the person. They have been about quick reflexes and kill counts. Battlefield 1942, nonetheless, is all about cooperation.
You may see the place quite a lot of the sequence’ programs started, just like the roles or courses, the addition of automobiles like tanks and planes, and the significance of controlling the map. There was an excellent better concentrate on mixed arms warfare, although. You could possibly be bombarding coastlines together with your capital ship whereas your chum flies round in a bomber, making an attempt to take out manned installations defending the coast. The dimensions and variety have been loopy. The maps allow you to duke it out in all of WW2’s theatres in order that you may battle because the British in El Alamein or the Imperial Japanese Navy in Iwo Jima.
A number of years in the past, EA made it free, nevertheless it has since been faraway from Origin on account of Gamespy going out of enterprise, leaving the sport with out servers. Nevertheless! There are nonetheless locations you may obtain it from, together with neighborhood servers, so there’s nonetheless life within the sport but – you can too get Battlefield 1942 in HD with the proper mods. However ought to that life run out, DICE introduced the 40s again with the 2018 sport, Battlefield V.
Order of Battle: Pacific
In our Order of Battle: Pacific evaluate, Rob Zacny says, “on the floor, Order of Battle: Pacific appears to be like like a sport we have seen earlier than. It is a descendant of Panzer Basic, the place models can transfer as soon as and battle as soon as every flip, and whose energy is denoted by hitpoints.” But it surely manages to do extra with it than every other of the basic sport’s successors have in a very long time. It is an intricate but approachable wargame, with logical guidelines and a definite eye for element.
Every transfer turns into a sequence of puzzles. Aims should be reached rapidly, with no dawdling. But extending your grasp for facet missions may present bonuses additional down the road. Every determination expands into new alternatives and additional questions.
It is usually a sport that lastly succeeds at naval transportation and fight, which is fairly uncommon among the many greatest technique video games, and a significant function, contemplating the Pacific setting means a lot of your time shall be spent at sea. Order of Battle’s method to naval is exceptionally sturdy and makes crusing from port to port as attention-grabbing as battles themselves.
World of Warplanes
World of Warplanes allows you to dwell out your fantasy of being a World Battle 2 fighter pilot, completely free of charge. Wargaming’s WW2 sport thrusts you into the cockpit of over 5 plane varieties that may embody 1000’s of customizable configurations. Your everlasting battle for dominance of the skies sees you going through action-packed 12v12 dogfights that require cautious communication and efficient teamwork so that you can declare victory.
This free PC sport is about within the Golden Age of navy aviation, and it has the environments to match. You may select to battle for one in every of seven nations, however the canvas via which you will be focusing on the baddies is impressed by land plenty all around the world. It implies that for those who’re something like us and get shot out of the sky on the common, you will at the very least have the ability to benefit from the view on the way in which down.
IL-2 Sturmovik 1946
Although IL-2 Sturmovik is sort of sufficiently old to go away faculty and get a job, it stays probably the greatest simulation video games of all time, significantly these with a navy bent.
1946, then, is one thing very particular as a result of it comprises IL-2 Sturmovik, its sequel, and an entire bunch of expansions, which suggests you get an nearly bewildering variety of campaigns and richly detailed planes, and by the point you might be achieved with all of it, you’ll be effortlessly pulling off Yo-Yos like a grasp ace and dashing throughout the skies in Yaks and MiGs like a pure.
Whereas 1946 collects all of the pre-2007 IL-2 Sturmovik video games and expansions, it additionally provides 9 further campaigns and plenty of pretty jets in an alternate-history model of the conflict that sees Germany and Russia duking it out within the skies in high-speed jet battles. The missions are scripted, although you’ll discover dynamic battles within the older video games that include 1946, and you will find your self on tense bombing runs, foiling lethal raids, and entering into loads of thrilling dogfights.
And there now we have it: the perfect WW2 video games you’ll find on PC. In want of much more? Head to our companion web site Wargamer for a take a look at the perfect WWI video games.
