Modern tactical strategy game Broken Arrow gets a June release date

Steel Balalaika and publisher Slitherine have announced that their realistic modern warfare tactical game Broken Arrow is coming out on 19th June. A deluxe Vanguard Edition is also available for pre-order on Steam, giving three days early unlock from 16th June.

Broken Arrow, named after US military term for an accidental nuclear weapon event that does not create a risk of war, and not after the 1996 John Travolta film, sees fictional conflict between US and Russian militaries in the Baltic region. Players will command infantry, recon, support vehicles, aircraft and more in a battle for supremacy through a single player campaign and 5v5 online multiplayer. You’re not building up a base in battle, but are instead looking to capture and hold strategic points and calling in reinforcements from off-map.

While it has the appearance of a hard-nosed military simulator, Steel Balalaika aims to be accessible to both newcomers and RTS experts. A key hook is the army-building system that allows for unit customisation using the more-than-300 realistic military units.

We’ve been hands on with the game through early playtesting, and there’s certainly a lot to take in. “While I’ve really taken a fairly light touch on this game,” I wrote in our Broken Arrow preview, “there’s plenty of depths to discover, such as customising unit loadouts to add more protection to tanks, equip different weapons on aircraft, to switch up the type of ammo used by artillery. The appeal is clear to see for fans of realistic wargame strategy titles and mil sims in general.”