A is for Airfield anarchy. Compared to hunting scurrying infantrymen in Ukrainian Fight Drone Simulator, Spiderweb-ing parked Tu-95s and Tu-22s is a piece of cake. The PC’s most realistic military drone sim gained a recreation of the SBU’s 2025 masterstroke last week. More “immersive epics” – playable reconstructions of notable drone ops – are in the works.

B is for Battle for Basingstoke

Less than six months away, Decision Point: Battlegroup Operational Simulator from NCED Wargames and Matrix Games, looks like an escapee from Britain’s Defence Wargaming Centre. Judging from the screenshots, dev diaries, and Steam description, Command Ops veterans will love it, micro-managers may struggle. Order issuing is restricted to occasional ‘decision points’, and will take the form of broad, company-level instructions. Detailed tasking of individual platoons and sections? That’s the exclusive preserve of a friendly AI. A tiltable 3D map to aid terrain visualisation might have been nice, but otherwise DP radiates promise.

C is for Car choice conundrum

American Truck Simulator is one of my ‘retirement games’ – titles that would damage my productivity if I played them daily as much as my heart desired. Already achingly addictive, ATS didn’t need an add-on as fresh, high quality, and affordable as Road Trip: Ford to accentuate its appeal, but it has got one all the same. Buy and you’ll face the same dilemma I’ve been grappling with all week: Which of the four fab Fords to add to your garage first.

It was a difficult choice, but after half-a-dozen ‘Quick Job’ test-drives, I eventually decided my first in-game car purchase wouldn’t be the bargain-basement Crown Victoria…

the boxy Bronco…

or the louche Lariat…

It had to be the drop-dead gorgeous, faintly unruly, and marvellously mellifluous Mustang Fastback…

D is for Distant Guns de-mothballed

By my count, PC wargamers wishing to recreate the Russo-Japanese War’s briny battles now have four standalone options to choose from. The youngest, Steam & Iron: Battle of Port Arthur, is pictured above and has been Early Accessible for less than a week. Thanks to the generosity of its creator, Norm Koger, the oldest, Distant Guns, is now DRM-free and gratis.

E is for Eastern European gumshoe sim

Tragically, the above screenshot isn’t from an upcoming historical tram sim. It’s from Lost Budapest, a demo-blessed first-person action-adventure set in the Hungarian capital ninety years ago. Period tram sims are, like period train and bus sims, rare for obvious practical and commercial reasons. Will the rise of AI ‘artists’ and researchers make vintage vehicle games more common, I wonder.

F is for Fracas finesse

Screenshots like the one overhead don’t show Defilade’s most unexpected features. RBGames aren’t just making a Sudden Strike-Red Alert hybrid with a contemporary setting. Their “old-school isometric RTS” will include smart, suppressable infantry that automatically exploit cover, aid wounded comrades, and, if things go totally pear-shaped, surrender. Prepare to oversee scraps in which melees are possible, grenades can be picked up and hurled back, and explosions sometimes leave soldiers dazed and stumbling.

G is for Glorious Cause’s gifted graphics

If the terrain graphics in The Glorious Cause ring a Liberty Bell, that’s probably because you’ve played Burden of Command. Luke Hughes has kindly allowed ThinkByte to use the scenery sprites from his genre-bending military RPG. Demo-able and relatively cheap, TGC has a good chance of featuring in the next 3×3 article.

H is for Hillier holes

This year’s Walker Cup was a ripsnorter and inspired my latest dalliance with Super Video Golf. Although none of SVG’s venues are half as picturesque or challenging as Lahinch, thanks to Craeg Galed and Harmouth Dale, the two courses included in the last DLC, divot devotees do now have to contend with pronounced slopes.

I is for Infinite Orienteering improvements

Since Infinite Orienteering was Cornered in August, Portality has face-lifted paths, tracks, and roads and improved the way they interconnect, and interact with terrain. They’ve overhauled course generation, added daily challenges, and made the maps runners grip more realistic and informative. We now have sober cabins, ambient wildlife such as deer and hares, and the ability to look left and right without changing direction. Hopefully, ‘make demo’ is now near the top of the dev’s ‘to do’ list.

J is for Japanese jank

The Tadami Line, Train Sim World’s first Japanese route, is getting ripped to shreds by Steam buyers. The weak sound effects, lifeless scenery, and poor optimization behind many of the red thumb reviews will sound particularly unappetising to anyone currently enjoying the newly peopled platforms and carriages of Running Train.

K is for Kudos to Cornish dev The Booth…

…for making a video game about the noble sport of conkers. The dangling horse chestnuts in the trialable Conked Out might lack hilums (the pale skullcap on every Aesculus nut), have disappointingly dull skins, and weird cross-sections, but as traditional rural pursuits rarely inspire digital diversions, I guess I shouldn’t be too critical. A high-fidelity conkers sim would be an interesting programming proposition. Determining what happens when an AP shell impacts angled tank armour is child’s play compared to calculating the result of a high-speed collision between two lumpy, battle-scarred horse chestnuts.

L is for Leftist revolutionaries

Players of Paintbucket Games’ last creation were asked to hunt down Nazi war criminals. In the studio’s next sleuth-em-up the quarry is communist terrorists. Featuring fictional cases but a (hopefully) recognisable Red Army Faction, SOKO 1977 will be published by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, a German federal agency with an admirable remit: “Promoting understanding of political issues, strengthening democratic awareness and encouraging political participation through political education measures.”

Want to aid German left-wingers, not lock them up? The game you need is Red Echoes: Berlin, an unusual mix of interactive fiction and turn-based strategy. Available in demo form, its backdrop is the November Revolution of 1918-19.

M is for Moscow or bust

As Victor Reijkersz explains in this video, Decisive Campaigns’ fifth incarnation brings significant engine changes in addition to a new theme. Due next month and focused on Army Group Centre’s unsuccessful bid to take Moscow, Decisive Campaigns: Twilight In The East will introduce a raft of new rules, unit modes, and weather-related subtleties.

N is for Not a nostalgic nod

At first glance Deer Hunting – The Season 2 appears to be a homage to genre greats like Deer Hunter 2005 and Hunting Unlimited 3. Deeper scrutiny reveals something a little different – a hunting sim made by a small outfit more interested in crafting credible ursine AI than comely visuals. The GUI is plug-ugly and controls seem far from intuitive, but enthusiastic Steam reviews like this one mean I’ll probably persevere.

O is for Other options are available

Rotorbound, a free, friendly heli game with multiple steeds, a contract-based career mode, and a nervous airfield dog, was made with extensive help from AI. If the concept tempts, but the designer’s choice of coding assistant repels, then there’s always RotorSim and SimCopter Remake.

P is for Proceed with caution

No A2Z would be complete without an FPS demo recommendation. Stylish, hard as nails, and generously carpeted, Washington Prime’s taster is set in a DC office-block sprinkled with readable memos and pistol-packing security guards. As the latter can zero your HP tally in seconds, it pays to proceed with caution, firefight from behind cover, and memorise the position of health-restoring vending machines.

Q is for Quick fag card

Issued by John Player & Sons in 1935, Sea Fishes consists of fifty striking piscine portraits. Card #3 depicts the thresher shark, the fish that gave it’s name to SSN-593, the first nuclear sub lost at sea. USS Thresher imploded after developing a fault during a diving test in the Atlantic in 1963. The accident killed all 129 of her crew and inspired a safety program known as SUBSAFE which dramatically reduced peacetime submarine losses in the USN.

R is for R.I.P. Matt Wagner

It’s been a tough month for Eagle Dynamics and the DCS community. Matt ‘Wags’ Wagner, a vital part of Digital Combat Simulator’s success for over two decades, passed away on September 7th. A much-admired producer, ambassador, and instructor for the PC’s premier present-day combat flight sim, he will be sorely missed by many.

S is for Singer sim

Will the phenomenal success of Dressmaker prompt a review here on THC? Probably not. However, if Cozy Lives ever get around to releasing a Napoleonic uniforms or blimp add-on, I promise to cover it.

T is for Thronged thoroughfares and ‘Tricky Truck meets Midtown Madness’

Boxy.Poly, the makers of SHIFU: Traffic Masters, model a type of road user often ignored by driving sim devs – the cyclist. Not only are trialists tasked with keeping jiggling cargo within the bed of a speeding micro truck, they’re expected to navigate Chinese streets teeming with motor vehicles, pedestrians, and bikes. The game’s bus mode and police chases promise to be a lot of fun.

U is for Unapologetically unglamorous

Text match reports, unnaturally uniform attendance figures, and a complete absence of female staff, don’t seem to be holding Non-League Manager back. Since it entered Early Access on September 21 Black Cannon’s debut has sold like hot half-time pies. Two hours after its launch, the developer Adam posted that the game had already been purchased in 24 different countries and “smashed” its week one sales target.

V is for Vie for a Vietnamese LZ

Online freebie Broken Arrow – la Drang feels like a digital port of a board wargame but is actually an original design. Novel elements (order rationing, bespoke combat dice, asymmetric goals…) and a relatively unusual premise (you’re either defending or attacking a Vietnam War LZ) lend it plenty of character. Quick turns, short LoS ranges, and an abundance of firepower ensure excitement.

W is for War Company’s alpha is days away

Set to arrive next week, War Company’s free alpha promises to be unmissable. The developer’s main influences seem to be Total War and Combat Mission. Only the slightly bald/bland battlefields give me cause for concern.

X is for Xtremely niche

Know a Chopper from a Crompton, and a Duff from a Grid? The released-on-Monday demo of Motive Power may be of interest. Due in November, the full game will give rail enthusiasts the chance to plan, distribute, and maintain Britain’s diesel and electric fleet between 1955 and 1994. I can already foresee myriad tough decisions. Yes, not making the mistakes British Railways made will mean greater efficiency and lower costs, but short-lived failures like the Metrovicks, Baby Deltics, and Class 41s are one of the reasons the Sixties was such a golden age for trainspotting.

Y is for Yikes!

My first brush with Early Access WW2 FPS Unknown Operations: The Habitus could well be my last. After being chauffeured from the railway station to the barracks by a chap with an unfortunate deformity and a terrible line in small talk, and getting some rudimentary weapons instruction from a bloke with a woeful grasp of health and safety, I was thrown into my first firefight. The frame-rate promptly collapsed and my plugged avatar followed suit seconds later.

Z is for Zoom into Zermatt

You don’t need to be into winter sports to appreciate Bonvo Ride, a free, browser-based snowboarding and skiing game with over six thousand real-word resorts in its venue menu. As some resorts boast hundreds of different runs, a player could hurtle down slopes in BR for years without revisiting real estate.