Missing in action for ten years, deception-driven WW2 RTS game RUSE is suddenly back on Steam

I feel like I’ve been pulled back to my university dorm room and days spent hunched around our PCs, engaging in LAN games of Starcraft 2 and Command and Conquer Generals. One of the winners from that heyday of RTS games was RUSE, which laid its WW2 conflicts out with incredible visual style, dropping you in from a war room on high to sweep across its giant battlefields. Packed with trickery, it was a particular favorite in multiplayer, but then one day it was removed from sale. A full decade later, it’s back, and this time it’s fully in the hands of developer Eugen Systems.

In December 2015, RUSE suddenly vanished from sale on Steam. While existing owners could continue to play it, no-one new could buy the game. At the time, Ubisoft told us that its removal from the Valve store was “due to the expiration of licensing rights over certain military items within the game.” In a new blog post, Eugen Systems explains that “the game didn’t officially belong to us,” and that in the wake of the delisting, “we could do nothing in the subsequent years to help the players who contacted us for assistance or tried to obtain the game.”

The developer, which most recently released modern-military RTS Warno in 2024, says it was offered the opportunity to add RUSE to its official catalog, bringing it back in full glory and more. The updated version includes a few “added extras,” such as all DLC being bundled in for free and full Steam Deck compatibility. The team has also performed some additional technical aspects to ensure it’s up to date for the modern crowd. “We are thrilled to bring RUSE to a new generation of players, and welcome back veterans.”

I’m very pleased to see its return, and if you missed out on RUSE the first time around, it’s certainly worth taking a look at. Rather than getting mired in the actions-per-minute build orders of some of its peers, RUSE puts strategy first and foremost, core to which is its eponymous system of deception.

RUSE cards can be used at any point during battle, and they’re essentially ways to turn and manipulate information in your favor. Tools such as decryption and espionage let you figure out what your opponents are doing before they realize you can see them. Conversely, you can hide your own actions by enacting radio silence or deploying camouflage, or even send out dummy assaults designed to trick your foes into reacting to an attack that isn’t actually coming.

On the single-player side, RUSE offers a full story-driven campaign, one-off challenge missions, and the ability to set up skirmish battles against computer-led opponents. The deception really comes alive in multiplayer, however, with matches featuring between two and eight players, whether in teams or as a free-for-all. Play with everything available from the start, progress through three phases of WW2 with gradually enhanced units and weaponry, or race to be the first to build and launch nuclear arms.

RUSE is available now on Steam, priced at $29.99 / £26.49. Get it here if you want to revisit its unique approach to World War II battles.

While the visuals aren’t quite as impressive now as they were back in 2010, the presentation of RUSE still holds up remarkably well, and it’ll probably run a lot smoother on modern machines than it did on all but the beefiest rigs back when it originally launched. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to enact radio silence and put my plans into action.