Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps

By Joseph Luster

Let’s take a break from our usual World War II game scenarios and head to the desert for some expanded skirmishes in Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps. Afrika Korps is, as one might naturally suspect, an add-on to Panzer Corps, a turn-based PC strategy game that has earned a fair share of high praise since its release. While Afrika Korps serves as a bonus to existing owners of the original, it also acts as a stand-alone game for new players, so it shouldn’t be difficult to jump right into the desert combat even if you slept on Panzer Corps itself.

Afrika Korps takes place in 1941, and has players fighting during the North African Campaign of WWII, making headway into Libya and Tunisia with the German Afrika Korps and its Axis allies. The detailed, turn-based battles against the Allies while squaring off for the Suez Canal, the Arabian Peninsula, and more will be familiar to fans, but Afrika Korps adds more than 20 fresh scenarios across its branched campaign. Scenarios range from the aforementioned attempt to secure the Suez Canal to Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Caucasus, British India, and more.

The add-on also includes new multiplayer scenarios; a bunch of new units like gliders and flamethrowing tanks, new weather types appropriate to the desert setting, and improved AI. Panzer Corps itself was pretty easy to pick up and play without too much of a learning curve, and even those who skipped out on it shouldn’t have too much trouble digging into Afrika Korps. There aren’t many games on the market that focus on this particular campaign, so it’s nice to see a change of scenery in World War II strategy amid so many familiar birds-eye views of the war.