Sudden Strike 5 is an unusual strategy game where, despite the presence of tactical pause, the real-time gameplay remains strongly at the forefront. Players are required to maintain a high level of attention and react quickly, both when planning their own moves and when responding to enemy actions. The ability to choose a commander and take advantage of their different perks adds variety to the missions, allowing them to be approached with different playstyles to a certain extent. Larger maps, new units, and several small innovations make Sudden Strike 5 an improvement over its predecessor in many ways, but there are still several quality-of-life aspects that need refinement. The learning curve is extremely steep and there is no proper tutorial to guide players, while the interface feels confusing both during gameplay and on the minimap. On top of that, balancing and AI issues are hard to ignore. The controls in the version I tested also deserve some reworking, regardless of the fact that a game of this type on console will always have to contend with the limitations of a controller. All things considered, the war fought by Sudden Strike 5 is ultimately won, but only with great effort and with many collateral losses left to count.