Platoon '44: Normandy is a real-time tactics game that plays in your browser. Jump into the dark over the Cotentin, lead the first waves onto Utah and Omaha, and fight your way inland through the hedgerows to the Vire and the last stand at Mortain, across ground built from the real map of Normandy.
Up to ten kilometers of Normandy on a map, built from survey data: the bluffs, the bocage, the villages and the rivers where they really are.
Hundreds of soldiers on the field at once, and every one of them runs on AI we built so that each man thinks for himself. He finds his own cover, answers the fire coming at him, and carries the fight on when the orders run out.
A night drop under searchlights, the landing craft at dawn, gliders and B-17s overhead, a river crossing in the mist, and tanks in open country.
No ads anywhere in the game, no download and no installer. Open the page and the war is there, on a laptop or a gaming rig.
The announcement trailer, and a first look at the game as it plays.
Five maps and eleven missions, each with its own ground, its own vehicles and its own way to win or lose.
Out the door over the Cotentin, scattered behind Utah Beach. Take Sainte-Mère-Église, silence the guns at Brécourt and hold the causeway exits before the ramps come down.
Utah Beach, Tare Green and Uncle Red. Sherman DD tanks swim in with the waves. Get up the causeway and link up with the airborne.
Omaha. Dog Red and Easy Green under a fifty-meter bluff, every gun manned. Cross the sand, get off the shingle and up the draw.
The beach is ours. Bring the army in and push inland.
Clear the flak on their schedule, before the bombers arrive.
Down the causeway, into the town, and hold the road against the counterattack.
Across the river at dawn, in rubber boats, under the gorge.
The town on the river, street by street.
Up the slope at Beuvrigny, behind a creeping barrage.
Armor on both sides in open country, and a back door to find.
One battalion cut off on Hill 317, and four Panzer divisions coming up the slopes.
What you can expect when you take command: what you see, how you give orders, who you fight beside and against, and why no two battles go the same way.
The camera height is your rank. Close in, a click takes one squad; pull back and it takes a platoon, then a company, then the whole battalion. Pick men one at a time, by unit, or everything under the cursor. Ride along with the aircraft over the drop zones, open the operations map, or switch to cinematic mode and just watch it unfold.
Right-click to move, drag to set the way they face when they arrive, right-click an enemy to engage him, double-click to send them running. The cursor tells you what a click will do before you make it, so an attack is never a surprise.
Each mission opens on an intelligence map with the enemy's lines and advice from High Command. Then you plan your waves and spend War Bonds on reinforcements, armor and air strikes. Garrisons, counterattacks and timings shift from one play to the next, and in the campaign the men who survive come with you.
Your soldiers find their own cover, answer the fire coming at them, drag the wounded to the medics and carry on when the orders run out. The German commander reads the battle too: he reinforces what is threatened, counterattacks what is weak, and digs his tanks in when you come at them.
Bullets do more than kill. A machine gun on a hedge puts a whole section on its belly, and pinned men shoot wild and will not advance. Lay down fire, screen the open ground with smoke, call mortars and the 105s onto the position, and send the next squad around the flank while the enemy keeps his head down.
Put a squad into a farmhouse and they fight from the windows. Storm a building the enemy holds and your men fight their way in through the door. Hedgerows, stone walls, shell holes and foxholes all count, and a dug-in rifleman is very hard to shift. Shellfire can bring a house down.
A shell either goes through the plate or it does not, depending on the gun, the range and the angle it strikes. Tracks get blown and repair crews weld them back on. Tanks dig in hull-down. Sherman DDs swim ashore with the waves, LSTs beach and unload, and engineers lay a treadway bridge wherever you draw it across a river.
Thunderbolts and RAF Typhoons strafe and rocket what your men can see, B-17s bomb the box you draw, gliders and C-47s bring in the airborne, and a 105 mm battery fires wherever you send it. The flak shoots back, and it can bring a fighter down in flames.
Medics treat the wounded where they fall, aid stations send litter jeeps out for them, and men who are patched up go back to their squads. Repair trucks put damaged armor back in the fight, and command posts and bivouacs keep a company together.
Free Play gives you every unit on every map to stage any battle you like. Skirmish deals a fresh field each time and a German commander to fight over it. Weather rolls in and out, day turns to night, and your battles save to continue later.
Studio renders of the actual models you command and fight in the game. Swipe through, or pick a side.
Every picture on this page is a screenshot from the game in development.
Platoon '44 runs in your browser with nothing to download, but a battle of seven hundred men, armour and artillery asks real work of your machine. Here is what plays it well.
60 fps on High in the biggest battles
30 fps on Low
Touch or a controller
Browser: Opera GX, or any Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Edge, Brave), kept up to date. Every one of them plays with an Xbox or PlayStation controller, and Chrome and Edge can also install the game as an app with its own icon. Smaller machines still run it: the game picks a preset to suit yours the first time it starts, and adjusts its detail during a battle to keep the frame rate up.
Normandy is the first campaign of the Platoon '44 series. The landing craft are loaded, the aircraft are warming up, and the date is still under wraps.
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