Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood

This review follows my review of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, which you can view on my profile. It also accompanies my review of Max Hastings’ Overlord, coming very soon on Goodreads and my Review site. Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood is everything a sequel should be and more. Despite this it still presents some disappointments in key areas. While it still learns quite a lot of lessons from its predecessor, I will seek to outline where they could have done better. Don’t let that note dismay however, I believe that Earned in Blood is a title very worthy of inheriting the mantle of the franchise. Without spoiling story content, the plot follows a friend and team member of the main character from Road to Hill 30, and likewise follows his story as the Battle for Normandy rages on around him. The game runs on the same engine as Road to Hill 30, and runs very much functionally the same. The game admittedly offers few feature improvements or innovations over its predecessor, but I don’t necessarily see this as a negative. Road to Hill 30 lacked any glaring issues with gameplay, and was developed in a formula that didn’t necessarily demand improvement. Basically, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So with that being said, where does this games strengths lie? What are the new things that it does bring to the table? And what, if ever, holds it back? Read on.

Earned in Blood places the player in the same formula as they’ll largely be used to: Small scale infantry combat with small arms, involving the signature trademarks of suppressing fire and flanking that are essential to progress, especially as I once again take on this iteration of the series on the hardest first time difficulty. But throughout the game, signs can be seen of subtle but grateful improvements. AI is more responsive, more weapons add a greater diversity to the game with a handful more of different opponents to face and new ways of handling tough situations each presenting themselves as welcome but not game-changing, the perfect kind of addition to a formula that works just fine in its inception. Throughout the entire game, very little functional additions are brought in aside from this. As a reviewer it pains me to wonder if anything more could have been successfully included, especially considering the development standards of the time. The only issue is it leaves me with painfully little to write on for the large duration of this review. The core strengths of Road to Hill 30 remain, without nothing lost during the development process for the sequel. With its few additions and changes in engine structure, it is unsurprising that this title was released only a little over half a year after Road to Hill 30. I think a larger level of new features and engine updates would have perhaps served the game well, but that cannot be known. It’s current state, however, is commendable enough. A final point on this game’s strengths, its final mission. The environmental design and scale of the mission places itself well ahead of anything thus experienced across either of the two games. I found that, without spoiling its content, it provided a fitting set piece to end the series’ foray into Normandy.

Now, the game’s shortcomings. Earned in Blood makes no attempts to improve the older system’s small flaws. I encountered the same issue of my soldiers ending up distinctly where I did not want them to be. The game also has the same issues with scale as Road to Hill 30, which can be seen in my previous review. Since the list of issues I had with Road to Hill 30 were relatively small, it’s not a huge issue that they have been addressed so little. It simply leaves Earned in Blood in the same place as the previous game.

This review is shorter than the one for Road to Hill 30. Almost everything I put forward in that review applies to this game as well. Whether this is good or bad is effectively up to the player. People who took up more issues with Road to Hill 30 than me will lament at how little has changed in this sequel, and people who loved the game more than me will rejoice in receiving the same, no more, no less. For me, I am indifferent, so I’m happy giving Earned in Blood the same rating as I gave the previous game, an 8/10.