Tannenberg is fun. Tannenberg is hard. I suck at it.

A 'realistic' WW1 shooter is as niche a genre as you could figure. But the gunplay is satisfying. I'm always a sucker for the polar opposite shooter types but I actually think it's because they're more related than they're not. I really like the fast paced ridiculous instagib rocket fight that is an arena shooter like Quake. But I also really like the hyper realistic shooters such as Squad, Arma and their near cousins like Siege and Tannenberg.

I'm not as big of a fan of shooters like Call of Duty, Battlefield and Apex. I think I know why. While Quake and Tannenberg couldn't be further apart from one another, they both rely on quick twitch actions. Fast eyes, quick triggers, clean aim. If you miss, you die. While Quake has you bounding about the arena, Tannenberg is sludgy and trudgy as you engage in trench warfare from field to field. But in both games a misstep or two will be a death. In both games your aim needs to be dead on. In both games you really feel the skill required to be any good at it.

Mind you, I am not good at it. But boy does getting even a single kill in Tannenberg feel good. It feels damn good. It's fun to navigate these beautiful and detailed maps. It's fun to huck grenades and dodge gas in the trenches. Every action can be so deadly. Especially coming in as the noob I am into a seasoned playerbase. It can get discouraging but getting three or four kills in a row can make you feel god-like. The guns also feel like, well, guns. One shot kills, or can kill if you're hitting the target.

Guns are period accurate, their reload times are accurate, in fact how you reload at all is accurate. No reloading a magazine and keeping all the bullets nonsense. I'm impressed by the squad depth available and their uniforming and flavor. Anthems and flags for the various units of WWI. Latvians, Bulgarians, Romanians. Unsung and underrepresented groups in these sorts of shooters. It's not all the British, French, American and Germans. A very nice touch.

There are carefully crafted roles and squads. When the map is full, working within your squad and using your role appropriately is crucial to winning. It reminds me a lot of a less arcadey Star Wars Battlefront II (the original not the EA version). Different classes and roles capable of performing different duties. And much like SWB2 you move from 'command point' to 'command point' capturing them which gives you points, reinforcements and resources.

Mechanically, the game feels great. Guns are heavy, slow loading, as accurate as the user is and, most importantly, deadly. You have to aim without sights, size up the target and hope you don't miss. You can bayonet charge enemies as they pour into your trench. It's really just a great gameplay experience, truly. And it is very novel. There's scarcely anything like it on the market. Some people have said in the game's community that once you play Tannenberg or Verdun (Tannenber's predecessor) that it'll ruin every other shooter on the market for you. I think they may be right.

It's so rare that guns do damage in video games. Everything is so bullet spongey. How refreshing that a largescale 40 person multiplayer map is host to a game where a single bullet from god knows where will send you back to spawn. In the thick of it all with mounted machine guns and artillery blasting away, wearing your gas mask to hopefully protect you from the chlorine gas, you really feel like you're on the battlefield. It is immersive. With the commands the commanders can give, and the voicelines to boot, you really feel like you're in those trenches. Especially in a close match.

Just a neat game. Really cool, niche product.