A One-sided Perspective.
While the idea of anime girls behind the controls of a Panzer tank may sound unique, or even bizarre, it's actually a genre that started back with Valkyria Chronicles in 2008. Since then, tanks and anime girls have been commonplace with the likes of Girls und Panzer, Metal Waltz, Multi-Turret Academy, and even more options on PC and Mobile to find your fix. Panzer Knights, which originally released on PC in 2021 has finally come to consoles, but does it provide something the genre hasn't already seen before? Well, no, no, it doesn't.
Panzer Knights: Commander's Edition takes the original base game and bundles in three content packs. These include the M4-748 Sherman, M26 Pershing, Churchill VII, Valentine XI, Panzer VIII Maus, and Elefant, adding a ton of recognizable and historic tanks to the game. While great editions, they do largely break the game, which I'll explain shortly.
Panzer Knights puts you in command of a newly trained Panzer unit, fresh out of training. You are then thrust into combat, shortly before the invasion of Poland. While you do oversee real-life battles, suspiciously without ground infantry, you only take on these battles from the German perspective. Given you are technically playing as the bad guys, the game does what it can to present their cast as the protagonists in this story, even having them question some orders.
What really prevents the story from having anything to really get invested in are several apparent factors. Firstly, certain nations during World War II are not even mentioned, with equally large gaps in the context of certain battles.
Secondly, the lack of much through line with the narrative. As you can customize your team, a lot of the dialogue feels random or there to just have the personality of the girls shine through. There really isn't much of an actual story here, apart from thinly pieced together moments of history, albeit with a lack of conveniently showing how the War ended for Germany. Add on spelling errors, the awkwardly injected German words, and it's hard to really be invested here.
The cast also lacks any memorable characters or real moments to get behind them. While each girl has specific stats to make your squad tougher, there isn't really a standout character that feels fleshed out. Sure, the art is solid, and while one girl's head is bigger than her body, I did like a lot of the designs, even if the uniforms they are wearing are not as historically accurate as the game is trying to relax into.
The bulk of the story is told via a visual novel approach, with the girls themselves not being rendered, unlike Girls und Panzer, which does feel like the origin of this game's inspirations. However, there are just singular assets for each of the cast, regardless of the spoken dialogue, which is only in Japanese.
While the story doesn't really keep you hooked, it's far from the biggest offender here. The presentation is a massive sore spot that varies from absent AI to horrendous pop-in and limited draw distance, that made it felt like I was back on the Nintendo 64. While the team size was ridiculously small with a microscopic budget, I've seen better efforts made by a single developer, so the presentation woes here are justified and could have seen improvement for this release, especially the pop-in.
The pop-in is so bad that some assets won't appear until you are right next to them, which include fences, trees, bushes, or even enemy tanks. I had an enemy tank appear in front of me, then disappear until I got just close enough to point blank shoot it with my cannon. Nearly every second of gameplay has some sort of pop-in that feels insane, given the PSone/N64 visuals.
The general gameplay has you driving your tank from one objective to the next, eliminating the enemy or capturing a location. While the driving is fine, it does feel rather stiff to even nudge left or right. While there are differences between tanks for things like moving the cannon arm or how fast the tank is, each girl you add into the tank squad has their own perks to better those stats.
You'll have three different types of ammo, with varying armor penetration perks, with stronger ammo having less in reserves. You can use smoke to hide your presence, to call in supply drops to refill your ammo. You also have a limited supply of air support, which has your Airforce carpet bomb a location of your choosing.
Aiming is a bit different than most tank games. As you move the cannon, there are two target reticles. The main one is where your cannon is facing, the second is where the shell will be fired. You need to let the second cursor catch up as you move the cannon. I get what they are doing here, but it can cause you to take some unnecessary hits in the early game when your tank is pretty fragile.
While you can swap to newer tanks and unlock more, the available tanks via the DLC are almost unfair to use. One of the new tanks made me nearly invincible, with me going entire missions with my armor never dipping into the red, ever, despite being surrounded and pelted by enemy fire. I get adding in new tanks, but they simply made the game too easy. While you can choose weaker tanks, there is a huge downside to making the game harder.
Missions, in their entirety, don't have any sort of checkpoint system. This means if you die, or you lose an ally in the final minutes, after a 45 minute mission, you lose all progress and have to restart the entire mission. This is such a weird move, given it could autosave after completing an objective, but there is no such thing.
However, the real issue with the game's combat is the enemy AI, or rather the complete lack of it. Tanks will just barrel in to shoot you without taking in account for your teammates. Often, tanks will just sit there and take the damage if you are far enough out and can actually see them. The AI can sometimes feel smart enough to put together some sort of strategy, but more often than not, they lack any sense of survivability or offense.
What I do like about combat is the ability to target certain parts of a tank. Sure, they can repair themselves, but catching them repairing and decimating them is rather fun. You can take out their treads or cannon, and leave them a sitting duck.
Victory, or even defeat, will reward you with medals. These are used to purchase new tanks or add new characters to your ranks. Each new character has perks, but I was disappointed to see that some characters just had the same perks as other characters. There are male characters to add to your ranks, but as this is primarily an anime girl tank game, I don't see the demographic for this game really including them in their squad.
Girls und Panzer had a lot of customization, to various colors, stickers, and more. Here, Tanks have a small collection of camo's and basic colors. As it is trying to be historically accurate, I do feel they could have done a bit more here and what is on offer.
While Panzer Knights: Commanders Edition is a relatively budget price title, I'm not convinced its short campaign and limited scope of gameplay to be worth the investment. The historical accuracy of Panzer Knights is questionable given the one-sided approach of having the narrative only from the German perspective, with other nations not even mentioned. It also ends well before the fall of the German forces, and doesn't really look to address it in any capacity.
Panzer Knights feels incredibly lacking, and not just in its basic visuals, as the colorful nature of its environments and the bantering of its anime girls does have some appeal, but it feels shallow and lacking any depth. From a barely coherent narrative that loosely ties together real moments in history, to limited combat options, and bizarre technical issues, Panzer Knights is an imitation of far better experiences.
Developer - Joy Brick. Publisher - PQube. Released - August 13th, 2026. Available On - PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC. Rated - (T) Language, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code for Panzer Knights: Commander’s Edition was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.