Onemilitarycamp Screenshot 06 Min

Preview – One Military Camp [Beta] PC

You may be surprised to hear that One Military Camp is NOT from the same team that brought us Two Point Hospital and the upcoming Two Point Campus, even though it is a similarly-toned base-building management game with a cartoony 3D art style. Perhaps that was done deliberately(?), because it certainly doesn’t look too out of place next to those titles, with the player having to administer the research and placement of new buildings, complete quests to earn more funding, and, of course, recruit and manage workers. However, I do have to point out the slightly darker theme here. Where other games are usually about handling zoos, theme parks, and other fun things (ignoring Prison Architect), running an army boot camp is something else entirely. Maybe not so bad on its own, but it turns out One Military Camp also involves sending your troops out to fight for territory across Europe, which maybe hits a little too close to home with the current state of things. I mean, I loved trapping bad amusement park guests on a small island with fifteen annoying costumed entertainers until they died of exhaustion just as much as the next person, but it’s a little different to have the workers you’ve trained in a seemingly comical and casual title legitimately perish in a war. I just hope it’s handled well.

Sadly, as the demo was essentially just a quick tutorial and only about ten minutes in length, I didn’t get to see any of the ‘combat’, if there’s any at all outside of ‘bigger number > smaller number’. I also didn’t get to see how it aims to keep players engaged enough to develop a full camp. The trailer does shed some light on this by going over how troops can be trained in different areas, such as artillery or learning to become an elite spy, but there was very little to see hands-on. Build barracks, recruit them into different areas depending on their stats, keep them fed and motivated, and make sure the whole place has power. That’s pretty much all I got to see: the very core foundational concept. It worked well as far as I could see but there’s so much more to go. I’m optimistic that the combat will be interesting and the real-world locations will be handled thoughtfully, that the different trainings will open up new and exciting paths to victory, that the missions are fun and challenging, and that the whole thing comes together to form an engrossing project which invites players to really become invested in their camps. But right now it’s just too early to tell.