Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway (2008): A Haunted Squad Shooter That Still Cuts

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway lands you in the boots of Staff Sergeant Matt Baker, and it never lets him — or you — forget the cost of command. Gearbox Software’s 2008 tactical shooter, the third entry in the Brothers in Arms series, drops the 101st Airborne Division into Operation Market Garden, the high-risk airborne assault meant to end World War II by Christmas.

Trailer, via Gearbox.

A Sergeant Haunted by Normandy

Baker arrives in the Netherlands freshly promoted and badly shaken. He is haunted by the deaths of Privates Garnett and Allen during the fighting in Normandy, and by deceased Private Leggett’s involvement in those losses. His best friend, Staff Sergeant Joe Hartsock, commands 2nd squad. The unit takes on replacements, including green Private Franky LaRoche and transferred English replacement PFC Dawson, while Corporal Sam Corrion stews over being passed over for promotion.

That emotional weight is the spine of the campaign. Baker is based on Harrison C. Summers, and the game treats him as a man coming apart under responsibility rather than a silent action hero. It is the sharpest thing Hell’s Highway does.

Suppressing Fire, Then the Flank

Combat is squad-based and plays from both first-person and third-person perspectives. You control Baker directly; the squads under him run on artificial intelligence. Across the campaign you can bring up to three squads into the field, and the three squad types have distinct roles. Fire teams are built for suppressing the enemy. Assault teams are better for flanking maneuvers.

The signature system is the threat circle. A red circle above an enemy marks them as a danger. Order suppressive fire and the circle turns grey — the game telling you a flanking position just opened up. A cover system pulls the camera to an over-the-shoulder view behind objects.

Three difficulty levels are available from the start: Casual, Veteran and Authentic. Finishing the campaign unlocks Authentic, which sharpens enemy accuracy and strips the HUD and crosshairs.

Eindhoven Burns

The story moves through the Netherlands at a good clip. Baker’s unit arrives by glider and links up with Dutch resistance member Nicolaas, who supplies reconnaissance. After assisting crashed gliders, they join the 506th Regiment under Colonel Sink. They fight for the Son bridge, only for German forces to demolish it and delay the operation.

Then comes Eindhoven. The unit clears the town, eliminating a German sniper and artillery emplacements, and opens a path for British tanks. Baker finds Nicolaas’ missing son Pieter. The citizens celebrate. LaRoche falls for a Dutch girl even as Corrion tries to stop him from chasing her. That night, the Luftwaffe bombs the city, and the squad fights into the burning rubble.

Ranked by what actually works:

1. The threat-circle flanking system, which turns squad commands into readable, moment-to-moment decisions.
2. Authentic difficulty, which removes the HUD and forces you to trust the men beside you.
3. The Eindhoven bombing sequence, where the campaign’s mood and its combat finally meet.
4. The cover system’s camera shift, functional but the least distinctive piece of the kit.

What Hell’s Highway Gets Right

The squad mechanics carry this game. Suppression and flanking are not decoration; they are the whole tactical loop, and the grey circle is an elegant way to teach it without a tutorial voice barking at you. The Market Garden setting gives the campaign a built-in tragedy — a plan that was supposed to end the war early, and did not.

The weaknesses are structural. Hell’s Highway retains much of its predecessors’ gameplay, and it shows. The third-person cover shift is competent rather than inspired, and the campaign leans hard on Baker’s guilt to do emotional work the mission design does not always earn.

Still, the ambition is real. Hell’s Highway wants to be a war story about the men you lose, not the ground you take, and it mostly gets there. The Eindhoven stretch — the celebration, the bombing, the rubble — is the clearest proof.

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway scores 7.8/10.

Brothers in Arms · game review · Gearbox Software · Hell's Highway · tactical shooter · World War II games