Command: Modern Operations

Finally, a war game for Air Traffic Controllers.

Embrace the Autism

A very autistic game.

At risk of becoming one of those "War Thunder Sucks with 10,000 hours played" memes, I have to say the state of this game now, in Summer of 2025, is so ridden with previously fixed bugs that It has become flat-out unenjoyable and, frankly, unplayable. And to say that kills me, because for a huge amount of those 1,000+ hours I have with this game, the first 70-80 percent were fantastic. TL,DR: This game just isn't worth the money and time required to play it anymore, not like it once was. Command was the ultimate wargamer's dream: a massive, almost obsessive level of detail in the broad domains of air, sea, and even land combat, plus a truly encyclopedic data bank of vehicles, sensors, weapons, and units with which to live out any war scenario you could dream up. There is a huge group of very diverse missions included with the game, numerous campaigns available for purchase, and an even larger repository of free, player-generated missions with the community scenario pack here on Steam. And I would be remiss to not include the (what should be) award-winning "Fury" series of campaigns by Bart Gauvin, which have literal novels written to support their stories. This game in the late 2010s and into the first couple years or so of the 2020s was so, so good. Now, it's a different story. An endless cycle of updates that fix some things and even add exciting new features, only to also re-break old fixes and reintroduce previously fixed bugs and issues. Aerial refueling, aircraft formations, the behavior of surface to air missiles, formations and unit navigation, and on and on and on. And they're big bugs, too. Most interesting scenarios will include multiples of almost all of those things, and you never know what is or is not going to work because when they update again to fix the bugs, something else (and usually all sorts of other previously stable things) are now broken. I get that the game is very complex and has many, many moving parts. But at some point you come to a realization that the scenario you want to play or build just isn't going to work right now, and the update to fix the problems might be months out, and who knows what else will be broken by then. The game has become constant frustration. The developers, from my outsider perspective, definitely seem to be in a situation where they have bitten off more than they could chew. On a recent thread on their official forums, a senior developer straight up said they had thousands of issues on Github to work through. Thousands. And that number never seems to get any smaller, either. Beyond that, those missions included with the game (as well as most of the community scenario pack) have not been updated to take advantage of any of the new features or updates that change the way things in the game work, and so many are in need of updating themselves to remain relevant and playable. New $15 to $20 campaigns are occasionally drip fed by the dev team, but the mission list is pretty static nowadays. There also aren't many people building their own missions or campaigns anymore, either. Lastly, the online support on their forums has also become rather unwelcoming, to the point that I have abandoned any hope of being able to get or provide support for any issues that I also run across. The dev team seems burned out with the endless sea of complaints and support requests, and one or two very prolific forum trolls add to the negative experience in a big way. For a game that I have spent well north of $100 on, I find this to be unacceptable; but, alas, I'm just one person who can only write a multiple paragraph review to hopefully forewarn others about who might be thinking about taking the extensive time it takes to learn this game might be walking in to. This game just isn't worth the money and time required to play it anymore, not like it once was.

CMO is described on here as a wargame but a better description might be "modern air/naval combat simulation engine." Yes, there are scenarios and campaigns here. Sure, points are tallied to determine "wins" and "losses." However, this more sim than game. The professional edition is marketed to defense and intel analyst types. I can only give an unqualified recommendation to one consumer niche: fans of Harpoon. CMO is basically the modern Harpoon. (Incidentally, Harpoon was my first wargame. My dad bought it for our Tandy 1000 in the 1990s, and It was installed off 3.5" floppy disks). Granted, if you can relate to any of that, you probably already own CMO. Fans of simulation titles may enjoy this. Like all good sims, CMO rewards many hours of outside study. Obviously you are not flying planes or sailing ships here. Hardcore wargamers are the last group I would recommend try CMO. Be forewarned: we are talking Grigsby-level complexity here. The UI is kind of clunky but the real learning curve with CMO is understanding different platforms and what they do best. That knowledge does not come overnight. If you are not familiar with post-WWII air and naval platforms and weapons systems, you will have a lot to learn. Also note: while CMO has a database of ground units, the engine does not simulate ground combat in any particular depth. All that said, if you're the kind of person who reads Wikipediia articles about fighter jets while sitting on the crapper, you should give this a shot. There is really nothing else like it. There is a steady flow of reasonably-priced DLC, an immense (free) community scenario pack, and a powerful scenario editor that allows you to simulate pretty much any modern conflict scenario you desire.

It's not a game, it's software.

Look I don't recommend this if you don't have autism. Like straight up this is for freaking nerds and degenerates like me with little to no social skills. This is not a game its a simulator. It's all numbers in analysis/attention to detail. Like this will suck you in if you take conflict data analysis as an interest. Also Its hard to justify the price if you wont sink 1000+ hours into it. The sim is $80 but i bought it at $100+ iirc back when it was Command Modern Air Naval Operations (CMANO). Just wish it was as snappy as google earth. Unfortunately its not possible. Don't buy if you're casual, if you think you can bear it then go ahead and buy just make sure to refund it if you don't like it. Really wish the game worked on Proton/Linux. Its a shame. I was told (by the team) it was because it was unprofitable and pointless since their users "don't use linux"