What Firefight is
Firefight is a World War II real-time simulation played from a top-down 2D view. It follows in the spirit of the old Close Combat series but with better AI, individual soldier modelling and a faster frame rate, so combat reads as intense and realistic without losing clarity. Every bullet, shell and piece of shrapnel is modelled in 3D and ricochets off sloping surfaces, so cover and positioning genuinely matter. Tanks run on a physics engine with gears, rev counters and speedos, and steer themselves with brake levers, which gives tracked vehicles a convincing, deliberate movement rather than a sliding token.
How a group plays it together
Firefight supports online PvP, so friends can face each other directly rather than only working through the scenarios against the AI. The command interface is built to be easy to use, which keeps the focus on ordering units and reading the battlefield instead of fighting the controls. Because combat is real time and every soldier is tracked individually, matches turn into a series of small decisions: where a squad moves, who covers which angle, when to commit armour.
What to know before starting
Each infantryman carries a rank, name, weapon, ammunition count, heart rate and fatigue level, and the AI acts on that detail. Machine gunners call for ammunition when they run low and squad mates will bring spare rounds if they have any. Wounded men call for medics, who sprint over to give first aid. Off-board artillery can be requested, but the battery fires several ranging shots before all eight guns open up together, so calling it in is a commitment rather than an instant answer.
There are 36 maps — nine each on the Western Front, Eastern Front, Pacific Front and Modern Cities — and every map has eight scenarios. The scenarios let you play as any of the major nationalities fighting on the Western Front from 1939 through 1945. Expect a game that rewards patience with positioning and reading your own troops' condition over quick reflexes.