Operation Market Garden

Joni Nuutinen

About this game

Operation Market Garden 1944 is a turn based strategy game set on the European Western Front during the later stages of WW2 From Joni Nuutinen: by a wargamer for the wargamers since 2011. Last updated December 2025

Operation Market Garden was a risky Allied attempt to shorten the end of WWII by using 3 separate groups of airborne forces to capture multiple bridges to pave the way for a 100-kilometer armored attack to seize the German industrial heartland east of Arnhem. American and British paratroopers without a direct supply line had to depend on unreliable airdropped supplies until the Allied spearhead reached them. Thanks to ignored military intelligence, the true strength of the German forces in the area was not taken into account when the final decision to carry out the operation was made. Can you prevent what historian Cornelius Ryan called "the last great German victory of the war"?

"Market Garden was a bold and imaginative plan, but it was too ambitious."
- General Frederick Browning, commander of the Allied Airborne Corps, Airborne Operations (1951)


FEATURES:

+ Historical accuracy: Campaign mirrors the historical setup, and yes, that makes this a fairly difficult scenario to get through

+ Long-lasting: Thanks to in-built variation and the game's smart AI technology, each game provides a unique war gaming experience.

+ Supports casual play: Easy to pick up, leave off, continue later.

+ AI: Instead of just attacking on direct line towards the target, the AI opponent balances between strategic goals and smaller tasks like encircling nearby units.

+ Settings: Various options are available to alter the look of the gaming experience: Change difficulty level, hexagon size, Animation speed, choose icon set for units (NATO or REAL) and cities (Round, Shield, Square, block of houses), decide what is drawn on the map, and much more.


if you ever played classic physical tabletop strategy games you likely enjoy this series. Join other seasoned strategy gamers in changing the course of World War II!


"Market Garden was a defeat, but it was a defeat that the Allies learned from. It helped them to develop new tactics and strategies for the final offensive against Germany."
--- John Keegan, The Second World War (1989)

Ratings and reviews

I had to play this about 8 or 9 times to get my head around it. Quite an investment of time. It's a better game than I first thought but still unbalanced. The Germans have too many units, the allied airborne troops are hamstrung by lack of supplies and the 82nd is too weak. The Poles are pointless. It can be a hellish slog and you can easily get mobbed by the endless German units and slowed by endless dugouts. Market Garden was a difficult op. This game makes you feel the frustration.

Great, fun game. But very difficult to win. While all the games of the Conflict series are challenging, all model the battles and campaigns they depict with remarkable fidelity. Hence, not surprisingly the most difficult titles are those where the player plays the side that lost historically. To win in Operation-Market Garden, and 'change history,' you'll need lots of skill and luck. It's no mean feat to do as well as Montgomery did, and fall short just short of Arnhem. Highly recommended

Great game, but HARD. Probably because it's very realistic. I.e., the best you'll likely do is take the Eindhoven and Nijmegen bridges, and only get close to Arnhem, well after the paratroopers have wiped out. In other words, as well as the actual commanders did.

What’s new

+ Options to turn OFF initial bombardments, cliffs, and color shading of dialogs
+ Patch: moving from road to road at the lower-most hexagon might have not been interpret as a road-movement