Tom Clancy's EndWar™

WTF happened to you ubisoft? Why can't you make such more classics? Have you forgotten to tell stories? Boy I love this game...loved it back when I was in high school...love it now when I'm a dad

I love Tom Clancy. I wish he would make love to me like he did his wife when he made this game.

Bought this game when it first came out. Still scratches the itch of this 32 year old! Such a shame it hasn't had a remaster or a 2nd game. Shame it doesn't have a controller support option as it was a tad easier on PC but its my only complaint. Simple controls and an enjoyable campaign. 10/10.

Score: 6.5/10 EndWar is built around a handful of bold ideas, some of which were genuinely forward-thinking for 2008. Unfortunately, many of those ideas either clash with one another or work poorly on PC, resulting in a game that is interesting to engage with, but often frustrating to actually play. Camera and Core Concept The defining feature of EndWar is its camera system, which is glued to individual units rather than providing a traditional top-down RTS view. In theory, this creates a sense of immediacy and battlefield immersion. In practice, it becomes one of the game’s biggest problems. You fight the camera almost as often as the enemy. While you can zoom in and out, there is effectively no reason to use anything other than the maximum zoomed-out view. The closer perspectives actively obscure useful information. The camera also behaves erratically. It can be difficult or impossible to frame all units in a squad, especially fast-moving gunships. Infantry moving through forests often cause the camera to zoom or clip unpredictably. Terrain occlusion is inconsistent, leading to situations where geometry blocks your view but still accepts movement orders. The game might have benefited from going all-in on its camera concept; A fully committed first-person or unit-mounted perspective, such as helmet cams for infantry or gun cams for aircraft, would at least have been coherent. As implemented, the system sits awkwardly between tactical overview and cinematic immersion. Controls and Input EndWar was designed around voice commands, such as “Unit One, capture Alpha” or “Unit Two, attack hostile one.” On PC, this system is functionally useless. Issuing commands via voice is slower than clicking, less precise, and provides no real advantage. Keyboard controls are poorly mapped and unintuitive. After well over 100 hours with the PC version, I never found a reason to use them. The mouse ends up doing nearly all the work. Feedback is also unreliable. Units occasionally move in ways I did not intend or remember ordering. Selecting enemy units can be finicky, especially small, fast targets like helicopters. Environmental geometry often interferes with input. A slight misclick on a treeline can send units into a forest instead of the intended open ground, sometimes because the trees were visually occluded but still interactive. It is clear the control scheme was better suited to the original console releases on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. On PC, it feels compromised and awkward. Graphics and Presentation EndWar has solid production values, typical of a late-2000s AAA release. Visually, it is firmly rooted in the era’s “brown and bloom” aesthetic. The heavy use of bloom and halation can make certain levels, particularly ice maps at specific angles, genuinely hard to look at. Motion blur is excessive, cannot be disabled, and is one of the worst offenders. It is especially noticeable when switching between distant units, where the image smears so aggressively that it becomes disorienting and briefly unreadable. At times it is outright nauseating. Textures are low resolution and blurry, which is more noticeable here than in many strategy games because the camera allows you to zoom very close to units. This becomes particularly apparent when compared to **World in Conflict**, which released a year earlier and holds up significantly better in terms of visual clarity and presentation. Audio The music is competent but generic, blending into the background rather than standing out. Voice acting, however, is excellent and arguably the strongest part of the presentation. Unit chatter is well performed and provides genuinely useful gameplay information, such as critical unit status or enemy deployments. A notable omission is the lack of subtitles. There are no subtitles for cutscenes or spoken audio, which is a problem both for accessibility and for following the story. Story and Single-Player Structure The premise is solid and, in hindsight, fairly prescient. The execution is not. The “Prelude to War” campaign, which is the most narrative-driven portion of the game, is essentially an extended tutorial. The main World War III mode is effectively the multiplayer structure repurposed for single-player. There are cutscenes and news-style briefings in the WW3 and Theater of War modes, but they are sparse and largely disconnected from gameplay. They do not meaningfully affect missions or outcomes. Again, the comparison to World in Conflict is unfavorable. That game delivered a much stronger narrative presentation within a similar geopolitical framework. Strategy Layer and Progression Not everything falls flat. The RPG-like progression system for units is a smart way to add long-term investment and variety. Veteran units matter, and losing them carries weight. The Theater of War and WW3 modes are the core of the experience and remain the most interesting part of the game. The persistent global map, shifting frontlines, and territory control give the campaign a sense of continuity. In WW3 mode, your individual performance contributes to your faction’s success or failure over a given period, which is a compelling idea. The online component has reportedly been revived by the community, notably through IceColdSnake’s group, though details must be sought externally due to platform restrictions. Final Thoughts EndWar is best described as an interesting but compromised experiment. Its standout ideas were refined and executed far more effectively in later titles like Wargame and WARNO. If you approach it with the right mindset and accept its limitations, there is still fun to be had, particularly in the Theater of War modes. That said, it is difficult to recommend without caveats. For most players, better and more polished alternatives exist. A solid 6.5 out of 10.

I wish there was a middle ground review where I could give half thumbs up and half thumbs down as a review score. The game is a great idea with terrible execution. The rock paper scissors is an interesting dynamic but when you're looking at a representation of real weaponry it feels far too simple. The voice recognition needs an update. I only wish there was a successor to this game because the ideas here are great, but the voice commands are clunky with poor recognition, and no confirmation. This is intended for speed, but the ultimate speed is accuracy. It is honestly a fun game, with a lot of problems due to its age and simplicity. If you can get past its flaws, the game is great. But the flaws will definitely frustrate you!

Give us modding rights for custom maps! ^_^ This is still a great game...

A truly unique RTS experience. Also modders have managed to bring the Theater of War back online and it is fully functional. Encourage both new players and those with a strong sense of nostalgia to come back, join the Endwar Revival discord, and get back to the war!

Trash now? AI just spams units to the point of unplayability :( Why would they ruin this console classic like this?

I've been playing this game since 2011 and that was back on my PS3, and I clearly am not tired of it ^, I just wish there was like a mod or if this game would get a revisit in the future. Like new maps would be good enough for me, I wouldn't even want the game play to change, just give me new maps to strategize around lol. I highly doubt it, but a man can dream. Anyway, great game, super basic but that's why its fun and entertaining, simplicity is king.

What an out dated piece of filth, the game itself and the idea especially theater of war was and still is great idea's, managing your battle group is thrilling and engaging. Now comes everything else, first off the AI is stupid at low difficulty, mid they have foresight and the ungodly ability to take advantage of line of sight. The highest is just straight up torture, perfectly timed everything. Special abilities paired with hit and run tactics, EMP and air strikes so precise you'd think God was whispering in their ear your exact hopes and wishes. Arty that always somehow has you zeroed in before you get a whiff of their general location, the worse part is the camera. So just use the command vehicle right? WRONG! They don't let you special attack while in the menu so you have to navigate back into action mode and by the time you coordinate that they already pulling out of your AOE. Its infuriating that Transports in particular stop a meter away from effective range so you have to manually order them get slightly closer to activate the attack. What about the voice commands? It does you as much good as a confession to your neighborly crack addict. Sometimes it works flawlessly, sometimes it does you as much good as explaining to that one ex why you have another girl in your contacts. The faction are borked, EU is shafted hard, Russia is supreme in every case by end game. USA is manageable, tactical play can win the day often at a pyrrhic victory. I cannot stress how annoying these set backs become, don't let my hours fool you this used to be my go to when a friend got too confident in an FPS. Coming back nostalgia did not save me from screaming at my TV. I insulted every pixel my voice could reach. I wouldn't mind if everything didn't fell like it was artificially holding you back, I want to enjoy my game without determining the micro distance while the enemy is running laps while ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ my future wife. Which leaves the best for last, LINE OF SIGHT OR SHOULD I SAY LINE OF BLINDNESS! FOG OF WAR FOR ENEMY RIGHT ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ UNDER ME! I'm so close I could give a report of their medical issues none of which being me. I'm the least danger they're in. I should be their biggest concern but the game will not let you attack unless their stupid number pops in which will sometimes BE LITERALLY RIGHT UNDER YOU! No engagement possibility while you watch tin tin the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ autistic chimp knock you around and there is nothing you can do until the game decides they're in view. ♥♥♥♥ you, ♥♥♥♥ your friends, ♥♥♥♥ your upgrade screen, ♥♥♥♥ your kids, ♥♥♥♥ your line of sight, ♥♥♥♥ your debilitated distance, ♥♥♥♥ your AI and most of all ♥♥♥♥ this game. Not a single issue was fixed or addressed, by this point there are too many options on the market to ever recommend anyone putting themselves through this badly implemented gem of a game. 2/10 will not participate in another cucked match again.