Coming Next Week: 2020 March Madness WWIII Video Game Tournament

Alright folks, we are about sixteen hours away from tip off and the official start of the 2022 NCAA College Basketball Tournament. As I said the other day, I really enjoyed last year’s March Madness WWIII Novel tournament. And the same holds true for the WWIII tabletop wargame tourney held this past Christmas. Now we are days away from the start of the 2022 installment of WWIII March Madness.

This year’s tournament will cover World War III video games. As was the case with the previous tournaments, the field will be made up of contemporary games as well as a healthy dose of games from the past. While most of the games are PC-based, there are a few console games out there from the Nintendo, SegaCD, and a few of the Playstations. The majority of the tournament field consists of strategy/operational level games. This has been the preferred format for game designers over the years. Some simulations are also included in the field, though not in the numbers some of you might expect.

There are 32 game titles in the field, divided into four regions. Unlike the holiday tournament, where each region contained a specific tabletop wargame type, the regions for this tourney will be made up of a mixture of titles. Land, sea, air, Europe, Middle East, ect. There will be four rounds in the tournament with the first one kicking off on 21 March. I’ll lay out the schedule over the weekend.

Finally, as is the case with the NCAA Tournaments, there are a handful of bubble games with fates yet to be decided. I’d like your input as to whether or not you think any of these game titles are worthy of being included. And as always, if you have a particular WWIII video game you’d like to see included, please let me know in the comments or Twitter thread for this post.

Bubble Game Titles

Twilight 2000- Not a wargame in the traditional sense but an RPG. As far as its connection to WWIII, the game takes place in the aftermath of the war. Yet there’s no denying its influence and standing among wargamers. The tabletop version is a classic and the PC game was certainly ahead of its time.

Steel Beasts-A mixture of strategy game, action game, simulation game, and wargame of fairly complex gameplay. Steel Beasts contains detailed models of NATO and Soviet armored vehicles from the late Cold War years. Many armies around the world have adopted it for training purposes because, at its heart, Steel Beasts is a simulation, not a pure WWIII wargame. This one will be hard to decide.

M-1 Abrams Battle Tank– Similar to Steel Beasts but more of a mainline simulation. The game uses a WWIII in West Germany as the backdrop for its scenarios and campaign though. That’s a big plus.

Tom Clancy’s End War– This game has a large cult following and many people adore it. I’m not one of them. It always seemed more like a sci fi or high tech version of Risk masquerading as a WWIII strategy game. I don’t know, need some feedback here.