What the game is
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront is a realistic real-time strategy and real-time tactics game set on the Eastern Front between the USSR and Germany, running from June 1941 to May 1945. You command infantry, vehicles and heavy weapons from a top-down RTS view, or drop straight into a single unit and play it in third person, or take a first person gunner seat inside vehicles. All of these views switch instantly, so one person can play like a classic RTS commander while another drives a tank from the gunner's seat.
The arsenal covers over 250 vehicles and 100 heavy weapons, with accurate armor layouts, historical ammo loadouts and fully modeled internal components. Armor penetration and ammunition mechanics are modeled in detail, so where you hit a tank and what round you use actually matter. Alongside the shooting there is a layer of battlefield tools: land mines, magnetic mines, obstacle laying, foxhole building, bayonets, smokescreens, medics, air support and off-map artillery.
Playing it as a group
The game supports online co-op and online PvP. The 12 historical singleplayer missions, set at recreated locations, can also be played co-op with friends. Conquest, the dynamic campaign mode, has both singleplayer and co-op variants, so you and your friends can build an army group together, research new units and push along different strategic paths across a large collection of maps. Campaign length ranges from short to unlimited.
PvP and PvE battles run on 30 maps from 1v1 up to 4v4. In these modes you pick Doctrines, which let you choose special units that suit how you like to play, and you pick the stage of the war — Early, Mid or Late — so the equipment and vehicles on the field change accordingly. Because views switch instantly, a group can mix play styles in the same match without anyone being stuck with a control scheme they dislike.
Before you start
Expect a demanding, simulation-leaning game rather than a fast arcade RTS: armor, ammunition and positioning are modeled seriously, and the historical detail extends to sound design and visuals. There is a full in-game editor plus modding and workshop support, tagged as moddable, so community maps and mods are part of the package. The singleplayer dynamic campaign is also available if you want to play alone first and learn the mechanics before joining a co-op or PvP match.