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Burden of Command™
Can you lead? Burden of Command is an emotionally authentic tactical leadership RPG. You’re a company Captain in the historical Cottonbalers. Fighting psychology as much as bullets, you must build respect, trust, and battlefield experience to bring your brothers safely home.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-02 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-14.
What reviewers agree on
51 of the 76 reviews raise this.
“very intersting game , had my doubts in the 1st 2 hours an was looking to refund ... but i realised it was different compared to what ive played before with the officers involved ..10 hours in it grew on me as did the…”
“By far the best narrative WW2 strategy game on the market. An intuitive turn system on top of the narrative depth offered by Paul Wang, there isnt a game like this available on the market.”
“First game I've played that managed to really capture the spirit of a war epic. The mix of text based narration with top down strategy creates a lot of neat emergent storytelling (although this is often more scripted…”
34 of the 76 reviews raise this.
“First time playing a "combat leader RPG", and I gotta say the characters are really compelling. The team did a good job at writing dialogues that make you feel for the men, their anger, worries, and elations. The…”
“very intersting game , had my doubts in the 1st 2 hours an was looking to refund ... but i realised it was different compared to what ive played before with the officers involved ..10 hours in it grew on me as did the…”
“By far the best narrative WW2 strategy game on the market. An intuitive turn system on top of the narrative depth offered by Paul Wang, there isnt a game like this available on the market.”
13 of the 76 reviews raise this.
“First time playing a "combat leader RPG", and I gotta say the characters are really compelling. The team did a good job at writing dialogues that make you feel for the men, their anger, worries, and elations. The…”
“very intersting game , had my doubts in the 1st 2 hours an was looking to refund ... but i realised it was different compared to what ive played before with the officers involved ..10 hours in it grew on me as did the…”
“Great game, which could become amazing with some adjustments. It overall has a steep learning curve and is absolutely punishing. This is what is really appealing and makes it fun. Actions have consequences. However,…”
5 of the 76 reviews raise this.
“Unusual game but hooked. I like the back and forth between story/decisions and combat. Would like to see more impact comments on decisions made. Better graphics for battle would also be a nice addition. I do enjoy that…”
“Congratulations to the team – they have truly made a unique game. The story draws you in and lets you take part in history in a way no other World War II game I’ve played has managed (and I’ve played many of them). The…”
“Good game, if you like turn based hex games, this is for you. Love the historic narration and images.”
4 of the 76 reviews raise this.
“First time playing a "combat leader RPG", and I gotta say the characters are really compelling. The team did a good job at writing dialogues that make you feel for the men, their anger, worries, and elations. The…”
“very intersting game , had my doubts in the 1st 2 hours an was looking to refund ... but i realised it was different compared to what ive played before with the officers involved ..10 hours in it grew on me as did the…”
“Really engaging leadership RPG, do note that everything that happens in game cannot be undone. If one of your lieutenants is killed, that's it. You cannot reload saves. Which is a good thing in this game, as it puts…”
15 of the 76 reviews raise this · 4 of them still recommend the game.
“Needlessly cumbersome interface, rarely clear why assaults fail- will have enemy units so heavily suppressed the game tells you not to bother suppressing them further, but assaults continually fail "morale checks,"…”
“Not worth it unless you're really a big fan of the tactical military genre and you want to play something a bit different and are willing to tolerate a lot of bad UI and QoL. The designer interrupts the game early on to…”
“Great game, which could become amazing with some adjustments. It overall has a steep learning curve and is absolutely punishing. This is what is really appealing and makes it fun. Actions have consequences. However,…”
9 of the 76 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“unique game, would recommend. The tutorial is long as ♥♥♥♥ and way to on rails for my taste, but other than that i have no complaints about the game really.”
“This is hands down the most boring game I have ever encountered. I am a real life combat veteran from the GWOT and I literally fell asleep, TWICE, during the tutorial. I found myself simply click spamming, hoping to…”
“Needlessly cumbersome & using antiquated design from at least a decade ago. Also, quick advice for future development projects by y'all, tutorials can exist without dozen's of tutorial voice over that sound like HR is…”
7 of the 76 reviews raise this · 1 of them still recommend the game.
“Needlessly cumbersome interface, rarely clear why assaults fail- will have enemy units so heavily suppressed the game tells you not to bother suppressing them further, but assaults continually fail "morale checks,"…”
“Not worth it unless you're really a big fan of the tactical military genre and you want to play something a bit different and are willing to tolerate a lot of bad UI and QoL. The designer interrupts the game early on to…”
“Great game play. Forces good tactical thinking. A few minor interface improvements could be made, but overall, one of my favorite tactical wargames.”
6 of the 76 reviews raise this · 5 of them still recommend the game.
“Needlessly cumbersome interface, rarely clear why assaults fail- will have enemy units so heavily suppressed the game tells you not to bother suppressing them further, but assaults continually fail "morale checks,"…”
“All I can say is wow. It is brutal unforgiving and ruthless game. It really makes you feel for the characters and the choices made. If you like the dark, brutal side of war this game is for you.”
“An interesting, but very very tough, game. If you want a significantly different style of combat strategy game, this may be worth a try. It is hard though.”
5 of the 76 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“Great game, which could become amazing with some adjustments. It overall has a steep learning curve and is absolutely punishing. This is what is really appealing and makes it fun. Actions have consequences. However,…”
“Please buy this game. For a studio so small they way over exceed expectations not only in terms of quality gameplay and innovated systems but in storytelling and roleplaying as well. The balance between a squad strategy…”
Counted across 76 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 84.2% positive rating · as of 2026-05-14
“TL;DR: A great WWII Tactical RPG with tremendous writing, I would recommend. If you like military RPGs (Like Legionaries Life or Never Second in Rome) combined with tile-based combat (like Memoir '44 or Battle cry) then you will love Burden of Command. The writing in this game…”
— a player, Steam review · 102 hrs played“Incredible stress when you must put your best LT and his squads in a desperate defense or must do attack. You can't simply save and replay when you stumble into an ambush or get sniped by a well sighted MG42. Mechanics are easy to grasp, and I avoided researching the tables and…”
— a player, Steam review · 213 hrs played“I want to like this game a lot. However, it's insufficiently tested, and rather buggy. That would be less of a problem if the game weren't so ambitious narratively, and so dedicated to being opaque in design. All those thing combine to create extremely frustrating scenarios…”
— a player, Steam review · 54 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-05.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-25. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-04). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Full Release 1.11 - misc armor, QOL, other minor features plus bug fixes
Features Prep for next campaign ;-) ‘Side’ of tanks is now wider than before (Patrick, Luke) - reflecting more accurately both reality and the “Panzer War” rules we base our armor system on. This shou
Minor Update 1.1.10
Features Dedicated UK infantry (not para) company (Luke) Flame tank now has dedicated animation (Sergey, Alan, Luke) Smgs and sten guns now have dedicated sfx (Chris, Luke) -before they were using gen
Minor Patch 1.1.8
Features AT Guns now no longer have any movement capacity (Henk, Luke) -at the time scale of Burden there is not enough time to gear up and move such weapons. Yes some day we need trucks and jeeps tow
Full 1.1.7 - minor.
- Scenario: Les Vosges (scenario 16) - game would freeze under rare scripting conditions.
Hot Patch SR1.1.6
Cottonbaler start campaigns (e.g. “Italy Start”, “Morocco Start”) crash -when begun under SR1.1.5 with message: 'MasterReleaseConfig' object has no attribute 'italy_start'
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-14.
| Genres | Indie, RPG, Strategy |
| Player tags | Tactical RPG · Strategy RPG · World War II · Historical · War · Tactical · Turn-Based Tactics · Turn-Based Strategy · Story Rich · Wargame · RPG · Choices Matter (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Steam Achievements · Steam Cloud · Family Sharing |
| Languages | English * * |
| Achievements | 82 |
| Official site | https://burdenofcommand.com/ |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: OS: Windows 10+ Processor: 2 GHz Memory: 1 GB RAM Graphics: 1200x800 (1920x1080 or more recommended) Storage: 11 GB available space Additional Notes: Some integrated Intel HD graphics cards have been known to work but are not officially supported.