Commandos was the reference game series for real-time strategy lovers playing on PC between the late 1990s and early 2010s. There, players control a group of Allied soldiers that must complete dangerous missions, from sabotage to assassination, across Europe and Africa during World War II. The four instalments combined sold more than 5 million copies worldwide, which is an impressive amount when we talk about a Spanish game franchise at that time. And the magic hands behind such popular games were Pyro Studios’, a team of veterans from the Golden Age of Spanish games.
Thanks to Pyro Studios’ alliance with Eidos Interactive, the publisher behind Tomb Raider and Hitman, Commandos not only stood out in Spain but was a huge international success. This was in line with the goals of Ignacio and Javier Pérez Dolset, co-founder members, who dreamed of creating quality games that would compete with the most acclaimed foreign productions. Now that the franchise has been reborn with Commandos Origins, developed by Claymore Game Studios, it’s the perfect time to look back on its history.
Theirs was a sui generis case from the very first instalment. Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, released in 1998, dominated the top position in the sales charts of 17 countries (USA, England, Germany…). Also, it was the second best-selling game of the year just behind Tomb Raider — with almost a million copies sold in the first 6 months, the game quickly covered its investment costs. In 1999, the standalone expansion Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty was released to complement Behind Enemy Lines’ main story.
After this profitable debut, Pyro Studios began working on three projects simultaneously. The first and most important one was Commandos 2: Men of Courage, a direct sequel to Behind Enemy Lines. It was a very ambitious project, as more than 6 million euros were put to stake to develop a fresh game with new hiding and combat mechanics, improved enemy AIs and a better inventory system, just to name a few examples.
Mission at Eiffel Tower in Commandos 2: Men of Courage.
In 2001, thousands of PC players around the world delved into Commandos 2 campaign, generating an initial sales of 63 million euros. Pyro Studios’ joy was tarnished that same year with the resounding failure of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions, which were supposed to lead the way for Spanish games on both platforms.
Even so, the overall situation was a push of encouragement for Pyro Studios, which did not enter the new century too well. In 2000, the project Heart of Stone, which was planned as a strategy game mixed with adventure and role-playing games, was cancelled due to internal disputes between the team members and the studio executives. It was supposed to offer a game experience very different from Commandos, with a “very odd group” of “antiheroes” that join together to save the world.
Back to computers as their only target platform, Pyro Studios took distance from Commandos and released Praetorians in 2003. This new real-time strategy game featured the most popular military campaigns led by Julius Caesar. It counted on high quality cinematics that served as introductions for each mission and reinforced the spectacularity of the combat.
The good sales of Praetorians lead Pyro Studios to develop another historical strategy game, this time set between 1789 and 1815. Imperial Glory, released in 2005, allowed players to play as Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia or Prussia, guiding these nations on their quest to conquer Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Just a few months after Praetorians saw the light, Commandos 3: Destination Berlin was released as well. This time, reception was bittersweet — international outlets criticized it for making a reduced use of hotkeys in comparison with the previous games and offering a locked resolution of 800×600, which was considered low. Rating score was «average» on Metacritic on Metacritic, the lowest one in the series.
Three years passed until players could meet Commandos again. Commandos Strike Force was the series’ last original game to the present day, and first one to abandon isometric real-time strategy to embrace the first-person shooter genre. They wanted to follow the trend that Call of Duty had started. This instalment was simultaneously released on PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but its poor reception led Eidos Entertainment to part ways with the studio, which put the franchise on an indefinite hiatus. In a recent interview for Vandal, former member of the team Francisco ‘Maki’ Soler, said that Pyro “lost the race” because they didn’t have “the resources, the experience, or the structure” to make it happen successfully.
Other games were eventually cancelled as the studio fell victim to the economic crisis of 2008. In 2012, Pyro merged with Play Wireless to create Pyro Mobile and move onto social games for tablets and smartphones.
Almost 20 years later, Claymore Game Studios, along with the publisher Kalypso, has arrived as a knight in shining armor to give Commandos a new life with Commandos: Origins. The original flavor of real-time strategy with isometric graphics is here to take us back to the beginnings of Jack O’Hara and his allies. This reboot of the series will arrive on Steam, Playstation 5, Game Pass and Xbox Series X|S on April 9, 2025. In the meantime, players can enjoy the remaster versions of the game series now available on Steam. Hands up who’s excited!
Activity funded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport.
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