– Burden of Command is a leadership RPG

We spoke with project lead Luke Hughes about the World War II-game.

Burden of Command is new kind of war game, which the developers describe as a tactical leadership RPG. The game puts you in the role of a captain in the US Army, and you have to lead your men through a variety of operations during World War II, in a story-driven single player campaign where your choices matter.

With the goal of creating an experience that feels authentic and impactful, project lead Luke Hughes brought in researchers and experts from a variety of fields to ensure a high level of realism. This collaborative approach promises a game that not only engages players in strategic gameplay but also immerses them in the historical and psychological challenges faced by military leaders.

We had the opportunity to speak with Hughes about his inspirations for developing this unique, story-driven war game. Read on for our interview:

Burden of Command seems to go for a very different approach than most computer wargames. Where did this concept come from?

Originally I was keen to do a Panzer General (Corps) like game at the squad level. Of course it would involve tactical leaders. Then one night I was playing Crusader Kings – my wife kept asking me suspiciously what was this game where babies kept being born all the time LOL – and it suddenly hit me! Why not instead of following a family of nobles across Europe, follow a Band of Brothers? I.e. a group of officers and their men. Then, given my lifelong interest in leadership, as well as emotional and moral psychology, this sharpened into the Burden of Command.

This gave me a very different lens through which to look at tactical combat in World War II. It became tactical leadership in WWII (Leadership RPG!). Though, to be fair, not frankly very different emotionally from how the Band of Brothers series looks at tactical combat! Just different for a computer wargame. Which we are not, imho, we just draw on some of their traditions. We are a leadership RPG.

Now to be fair, there are some interesting antecedents in the boardgaming realm. You can see a short video on that here.

There’s an impressive team of researchers involved in the making of the game. What do they bring to the table?

Dad was an eminent historian (and WWII vet) so he gave me a deep love for research and the pursuit of historical truth. I used to go into archives like the Thomas Edison archives and help him as a kid (photocopying and other absolutely vital tasks LOL). And then I was a technology Research Director for Accenture. So a research mindset is in the blood. We did things like hire archivists to get us after action reports and photos from the Cottonbalers regiment we follow (a video on). And obviously we wanted a historian (Dr John McManus who is historian of the Cottonbalers) to advise. John read all our early narrative work in detail and gave us thorough feedback.

But I also knew enough to know I knew very little about many of the domains we’d need to do the game. So I explicitly went out looking for experts on writing, art, the military, and so forth. So for example, we got William Bernhardt who has written novels selling 10s of millions of copies but also teaches writing! So I read all his books on the latter so I wouldn’t be a complete moron guiding writers, and then we brought him in to review our writing. Similarly on other domains. It was great fun honestly! OK yeah, I love research LOL.

The other core body of experts were all the vets that wanted to get involved. It was very humbling. They felt we were saying something new about war that very much needed to be said. Our scenario leads Steve Overton and Henk Stoffer are both vets and we have many vets involved in many other capacities. Our historical media team is led by a navy vet Steve Lohr for example. As well as quite a few volunteered as playtesters. My wife is a vet, Dad was a WWII vet, and one of my sons is a vet. So this was emotionally very important to me as well.

This team humbles me – in the best possible way – every day.

Wargames have a reputation as being quite hard for newcomers to get into. How will you ensure that Burden of Command is as approachable as possible?

Ha, one of my core design ambitions was to make Burden as easy as XCOM. For it NOT to be a wargame (i.e. a dry, non human focused military exercise). I put a lot of time into interface design along these lines. I really wanted to reach a non wargamer audience. However, truth in advertising, this didn’t come true. Burden is not WWII XCOM. Why not? Because our focus on getting the gameplay historically and tactically credible (video) meant we violated core gameplay assumptions that almost every single game reinforce, like ‘bang, bang, bang you’re dead.”

Strangely, soldiers in WWII didn’t want to be shot. You shot at them and hey they got behind that stone wall. So with small arms fire it was likely 40,000 shots to even get a hit! Bang, bang did not kill. This meant that instead you had to do the ‘4Fs’ (Find, Fix, Flank, and Finish). Basically pin them down with suppressive fire and then assault.

These 4Fs are not how most games have trained gamers (instead: bang, bang, bang, you’re dead). So we found the learning curve for the 4Fs and teaching things like credible Command and Control (Lieutenants run Platoons and Captains run companies composed of Platoons (each of 3 squads)) also was a learning curve.

So the bottom line is that Burden has a learning curve because of our commitment to a credible roleplaying experience. But the good news is we have found we do reach gamers who are RPGers, XCOMers, general strategy gamers, and more. Not just wargamers! So this has been gratifying. Burden is not however for everyone and certainly not for casual gamers… but it might be for you!

And we did work hard on XCOM-like approaches to these novel mechanics.

Again, IMHO, Burden is not a wargame, it is a leadership RPG that draws for some battlefield mechanics on wargame traditions, but draws on many other games as well!

I’m a general gamer who plays some strategy games – stuff like Civilization, Total War, et.c. – how would you convince me to take the leap and try a game like Burden of Command?

See above, but if you love history or role playing or strategy and you are willing to take on a learning curve, Burden can be a good match for you. The majority of our playtesters have not been wargamers! We just draw on wargame traditions for some of the battlefield mechanics, but we also draw on XCOM, This War of Mine, classic RPGs, tactical games like Battle Brothers and so forth. Burden is not an easy game to categorize, but our core audience is methodical strategy gamers. People who are willing to learn Civ, HOI, CK2 etc.

How important is the narrative aspect of the game?

Well we devoted two novels worth of interactive fiction to it so it better be LOL. The writing has consistently gotten very strong praise (thank you Allen Gies, Paul Wang, and William Bernhardt!). Our writers come from a Choice of Games background. That is, interactive fiction. We worked extremely hard to tie narrative events to effects on the battlefield, and vice versa. Also you have narrative segments where you say you visit Rome or wartime Naples. No combat involved! Burden is a very story driven leadership RPG. On and off the battlefield.

You can get a sense of that from the mini campaign videos like this one:

Considering the focus on historical accuracy and realism, how do you balance making a game that is fun to play with the absolute horror of the subject matter?

Ah, interesting question. Our bible here was the Band of Brothers series. It was respectful of the experience. War brings out the worst but also the best (heroism) in people. It is a crucible of the soul. A good book on this is “What it is Like to Go to War” by famous novelist Karl Marlantes. He gave up a Rhodes Scholarship to fight in Vietnam! He wrote that war is inherently spiritual, because death is involved. That does not mean it is spiritually positive. It can be almost literally hell. He called going to war “entering the temple of Mars.”

Similarly to Band of Brothers we try to cover the terrible aspects of war with, for example, disturbing graphic violence imagery and upsetting events. But we don’t do it often gratuitously or often. Just like Band of Brothers could cover terrible scenes like the Lt losing his legs. Generally the feedback has been that we strike the right balance.

But Burden is not intended to be ‘fun.’ It is however intended to be engaging.

Do you play wargames in real life?

Yes both board and digital. But not like I used to. I play a mix of strategy, RPGs (oh my God, Baldur’s Gate III!), and tactical (XCOM!). On boardgame side a lot of cooperative tactical RPGs (Oathsworn, ISS Vanguard), and on the wargame side disturbingly lite ones these days like the Quartermaster General side (Meeples!). Also, my favorite digital wargame is Panzer General. Not exactly hard core! But I also loved Campaign Series, and Steel Panthers.

Oh, and I am running a D&D campaign (I was obsessed with D&D in high school). Possibly I am a geek LOL. But not just a gaming geek, a history and psychology geek! I wanted to be a writer when I started college, but found writing was too hard LOL. But Burden lets me work with writers, artists, musicians (Chris Scribner did an amazing job with our music by most people’s accounts). So basically I am interested in the broad experience of war as conveyed through tactical, narrative, art, photography, and music. So Burden’s subject is war but it is not a ‘wargame’ as conventionally understood. OK, have I beaten that point home enough times ? ;-)

Thank you for your time!

Thanks for the interesting questions!

Burden of Command launches in the first quarter of 2025, on PC. You can find it on Steam.

While Spillhistorie.no is a Norwegian website, we have more content in English. Here are some relevant interviews: