This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Wars" series – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

TheWars series, also known asFamicom Wars^[a] andAdvance Wars,^[b] is a series of military-themedturn-based strategyvideo games, predominantly developed byIntelligent Systems and published byNintendo. The series debuted in Japan in August of 1988 with the originalFamicom Wars, followed by sequels on the Super Famicom and Game Boy. These early installments were released in Japan, withAdvance Wars (2001) being the first to reach the North American and European markets.Advance Wars was released in the United States on September 10, 2001, but put on hold in Japan and Europe due to theSeptember 11 attacks.^[1] Although released in Europe in January 2002, neither Game Boy Advance game was released in Japan until theGame Boy Wars Advance 1+2 compilation, which released for the Game Boy Advance on November 25, 2004. The success ofAdvance Wars in the West is frequently credited as a driving force for Nintendo bringing Intelligent Systems' franchiseFire Emblem outside of Japan, as both series share a similar tactical gameplay style.

In 2005,Advance Wars: Dual Strike was released on theNintendo DS family of systems, which followed and expanded on the basic format of its predecessors. That same yearBattalion Wars, developed byKuju Entertainment, was released for theGameCube in Japan under the titleTotsugeki!! Famicom Wars, where it is considered a spin-off from the main series.Battalion Wars is a3D actionreal-time strategy game, as opposed to the turn-based strategy of the main series. An expanded sequel for theWii,Battalion Wars 2 was released two years later. The last major title in the franchise,Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, was released internationally for the DS in 2008 and departed from the series' light hearted tone. Like the two Game Boy Advance titles preceding it, the game was canceled in Japan following a series of delays until it finally released as a downloadable game in 2013. AtE3 2021, over a decade after the release ofDays of Ruin, a collection of remakes of bothAdvance Wars games, titledAdvance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, was announced for theNintendo Switch, with a planned release date of December 2021. A release date of April 8, 2022 was later announced, however on March 9, 2022 it was announced that due to theRussian invasion of Ukraine the game was being delayed until further notice.^[2] Another release date of April 21, 2023 would be announced a year later. These remakes were developed in collaboration withWayForward Technologies.

The player takes the role of aCommanding Officer (CO) in an army, usually of a country called Red Star (changed to Orange Star following international releases). InDays of Ruin, it is replaced by a nation called Rubinelle (Laurentia in the European release). In the single-player campaign of theAdvance Wars games, each level consists of a new map and opposing CO to defeat. Victory is achieved when all the opponent's units have been destroyed, theirHQ is captured, or another victory condition has been met. COs take turns recruiting and commanding units on grid-based maps. Units available includeinfantry,tanks,artillery,bombers, and many othermilitary units. Each turn, each unit may move around and/or perform an action, such as attacking or capturing a property. Certain actions, such as capturing, diving, or loading may only be performed at certain instances throughout the game.^[3]

The originalFamicom Wars game consists of two armies, Red Star (which became Orange Star in later international versions, possibly to avoid associations withCommunism) and Blue Moon fighting over square grid-based maps. The two armies could either be controlled by human players, or a human player could play against an AI opponent.^[4] The originalGame Boy Wars games featured a system similar toFamicom Wars, except the grid was changed so that the grid squares acted more likehexagons; each square is adjacent to six other squares, instead of four.Game Boy Wars also features a different opposing army called White Moon. Otherwise, the rules remain identical, and only inGame Boy Wars 3 were unit levels and a new resource introduced.^[5]Super Famicom Wars, the sequel toFamicom Wars, introduced Yellow Comet and Green Earth, bringing the number of armies playable at once to four. It returned to the basic square grid-based map style of the original game.^[6]

TheAdvance Wars games introduced several new elements. The most notable is that COs now have special abilities calledCO Powers that can affect the battle in different ways, giving the CO a temporary advantage over the other COs, such as providing allied units with increased firepower or causing damage to opposing units.Black Hole Rising introducedSuper CO Powers, andDual Strike introducedTag CO Powers.^[3][7] Conditions such asfog of war, rain, and snow affect the abilities of units to reveal the map and move around.^[8]Days of Ruin removed many of the features added to previousAdvance Wars games, greatly weakening CO Powers and reintroducing a unit level system.^[9]

Multiplayer mode is an important part of theNintendo Wars series. This allows players to compete against friends, each choosing a Commanding Officer to play and country to represent. TheAdvance Wars series of games, along with the far lesser knownGame Boy Wars 3, includemap editors, giving them increased replayability. In the originalFamicom Wars, two players were allowed to play; inGame Boy Wars, players could playhotseat multiplayer games.^[5] Currently the only release to lack hotseat multiplayer isGame Boy Wars Turbo. TheAdvance Wars series on theGame Boy Advance allowed link-play usinglink cables. Online multiplayer was originally planned forDual Strike, but was only later implemented inDays of Ruin.^[10][11]Battalion Wars 2 introduced online multiplayer over theWii's Wi-Fi connection. The game had 3 modes and 16 maps to play on. The multiplayer section was well-received but was criticized for not supportingvoice chat.^[12]

• Wars (series)
• Intelligent Systems
• Video games about the military
• Turn-based tactics video games by series
• Nintendo franchises
• Video game franchises introduced in 1988

• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• Articles needing additional references from February 2023
• All articles needing additional references
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata