Here's the super-80s trailer for Warno, the next RTS from the Wargame series devs

Eugen Systems, creators of the Wargame RTS series, have certainly noticed that 1980s nostalgia is in full swing: Warno, stylized WARNO, is their next game and it's going all in on the cold-war-goes-hot concept of a 1980s plunging into World War 3. Sporting stylized 1980s aesthetics, Warno will be set in a 1989 of total war in the German countryside.

That's as opposed to their last one, Wargame: Red Dragon, which was set in 1991.

Jokes aside, Warno looks to take a lot of inspiration from Eugen's Steel Division series of games, Steel Division: Normandy 44 and Steel Division 2. Focusing on specific military formations, Warno will sport the upgraded version of the Army General campaign that I found disappointing in Steel Division 2 at release, but which by all accounts has been massively improved since.

Probably the biggest attraction for many is the return of 10v10 multiplayer battles, which are absolutely chaotic in Steel Division's World War 2 era and will probably be just completely unhinged when the precision-guided munitions start flying. For my part, I'm interested in how the game will handle electronic warfare and counter-warfare, a brand new field as of the 1980s.

While Warno is intended as a spiritual successor to the Wargame trilogy, it's billed as a spiritual successor. You can find Warno on Steam, where it will launch into Early Access on January 20th, 2022.

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WARNO rts from Eugen systems cold war military hardware — (Image credit: Eugen Systems)

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.