Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway

War was certainly hell for the Allied troops in Operation Market Garden — a scenario that Gearbox head Randy Pitchford calls “the Empire Strikes Back of the Brothers in Arms saga.” In 1944, U.S. and British troops executed an ambitious plan to seize a series of bridges in the Netherlands, intending to gain clear access across the Rhine and into the heart of Germany. What was planned as a two-day mission that could turn the tide of World War II became a brutal eight-day struggle for the Allies…and ultimately, a bitter defeat.

That’s the backdrop of Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, and from our exclusive hands-on time with the game, we’d say it’s a good one. Franchise fans know that the first two BIAs — the original Xbox’s Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood — offered a shooter/strategy mix where players commanded teams of squadmates and had genuine control over their fate. Those elements return in full force with a shot of realism and ante-upping that only the leap to Xbox 360 could provide.

Reinforcing the series’ ongoing story, Highway begins with a brief cinematic that recalls the events of the earlier BIA games as returning character Sgt. Matt Baker sets the stage by intoning: “I never asked to be squad leader. But I had no choice.” After a short tutorial mission set in the middle of Operation Market Garden, where you (as Baker) and fellow returnee Sgt. Joe Hartsock are trying to escape an abandoned hospital in Eindhoven, the game jumps back a few days to the beginning of Market Garden. In cutscenes, the soldiers discuss their plans to “open up a highway” into Germany, and before long, Baker and his squad are in a glider — part of the air-dropped forces that made Operation Market (the first half of Market Garden) the biggest airborne operation in military history.

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