Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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The confrontation between the East and the West is coming to an end, but not between East and West Germany. The old party leaders are still sitting in their offices, not changing anything and waiting for exclamations from Moscow. But their end is close – Gorbachev and Kohl have already decided...
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is a political sim, simulation and strategy game
developed and published by Nostalgames.
Released on March 25th 2018 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux
in 2 languages: English and Russian.
It has received 698 reviews of which 648 were positive and 50 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.7 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 5.89€ on Steam, but you can find it for less on Gamivo.
The Steam community has classified Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall through various videos and screenshots.
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7 SP1+ (32-bit, 64-bit)
- Processor: SSE2 instruction set support
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: DX10 (shader model 4.0) or DX11 with feature level 9.3 capabilities
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 1 GB available space
MacOS
- OS: Mac OS X 10.8+
- Processor: SSE2 instruction set support
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04+, SteamOS+
- Processor: SSE2 instruction set support
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Storage: 1 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
What an absolute blast of a game with endless replayability! Of course, an advanced degree in history and political science wouldn't hurt when playing, but once you finally get the core concepts down, it becomes a fantastic sim!!
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Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is a dense and uncompromising political strategy game developed and published by Nostalgames, and it offers a rare opportunity to step into the administrative machinery of a late–Cold War socialist state. Rather than dramatizing the fall of the Eastern Bloc through cinematic set pieces, the game takes a far more granular approach: it places you behind the desk of East German, Bulgarian, Romanian, or Polish leadership, and asks you to manage an entire government teetering between ideological conviction, economic pressure, public dissatisfaction, and intensifying Western influence. Set between the mid-1980s and the collapse of 1990, the game offers a slow-burning, detail-heavy simulation where every decision feels like it carries political, social, or economic weight—even if the exact consequences are not immediately visible. This opacity is part of what makes the experience immersive; like real bureaucrats of the period, you often operate under uncertainty, piecing together outcomes through observation and instinct. The heart of the gameplay lies in its complex mesh of state systems. You manage propaganda, oversee elections, shape foreign relations, balance budgets, control censorship, manage the military apparatus, and deal with both internal dissent and external diplomatic shockwaves. Each subsystem feeds into others, creating a network of pressures that force you to prioritize one crisis at the expense of another. The depth is striking for a game developed by a small team. What it lacks in visual spectacle it compensates for with an intricate interplay of ideological battles, economic juggling, and political brinkmanship. You can attempt to modernize your state, double down on hardline doctrine, cautiously reform in hopes of survival, or embrace collapse and rebuild something new from the remnants. The alternate-history possibilities are substantial, and this flexibility is one of the game’s most engaging aspects. The narrative framing enhances the simulation rather than overshadowing it. Ostalgie integrates real historical events—uprisings, diplomatic tensions, Soviet stagnation, NATO pressure—with enough freedom for you to chart your own course. The game does not shy away from depicting the contradictions and struggles of socialist governance during its decline: ideological rigidity clashing with economic reality, loyalty to the Soviet bloc competing with rising national unrest, and propaganda campaigns that increasingly fail to mask the system’s breaking points. The writing and event flavor text help ground the mechanics, giving you a sense of the political atmosphere that defined the era. This contextual detail is a major reason the game resonates so strongly with players who enjoy historically grounded strategy. At the same time, the game’s complexity can create real frustration. One of the recurring criticisms from players is that the consequences of your decisions are not always transparent. You might adjust propaganda intensity, reallocate budget resources, or modify diplomatic stances without immediately understanding how these changes ripple through your administration. This ambiguity is thematically appropriate—the real governments of the era lacked perfect foresight—but it also means that new players face a steep learning curve. The interface, functional but dated, does not always help decode the systems. It can take hours before you begin to feel confident in interpreting feedback or predicting outcomes, and some players will find this opacity discouraging rather than immersive. The game’s presentation is deliberately minimalistic. The visuals are straightforward, relying on static screens, simple portraits, and dense informational menus rather than elaborate animations or detailed maps. This simplicity works for players who value mechanics over aesthetics, but it may alienate those who expect more elaborate production values from modern strategy titles. Ostalgie is unapologetically old-school in this regard: it prioritizes simulation depth and ideological authenticity over graphical flourish, and it assumes the player is willing to engage with spreadsheets, reports, and data-heavy decision-making. For the right audience, however, Ostalgie offers remarkable value. Fans of political strategy, alternate history, and Cold War studies will find dozens of hours of replayability. Each playthrough presents new challenges, new combinations of diplomatic pressures, and new opportunities to test different ideological or tactical approaches. The overwhelmingly positive reception from its player base reflects how deeply the game satisfies those who enjoy intricate management systems and historical nuance. It rewards patience, curiosity, and the desire to steer a nation through one of the most volatile periods in modern European history. In the end, Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall stands as a uniquely rich simulation for players who want to explore the twilight years of the Eastern Bloc from an administrative perspective. It is complex, demanding, and occasionally opaque, but also deeply atmospheric and intellectually engaging. The game excels not by simplifying history, but by immersing you in its contradictions. For players seeking a thoughtful, mechanically robust strategy experience grounded in real-world political tension, it remains one of the most distinctive titles in the genre. Rating: 8/10
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This game carries on from 1989 to 1992 or longer if the player wants. One plays as either cuba or vietnam. So, you do not have a lot of influence in the world. All these games are quirky, but if one has lived through these times, it is clear tht an immense amount of research went into this game. Basically, one can choose to join the rest of the world with liberalism or fight a rearguard action of continuing socialism. So, the replayability comes by choosing which path to take.
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Not much explanation of mechanics, but quite fun regardless Save our unions, comrades!
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Frequently Asked Questions
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is currently priced at 5.89€ on Steam.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 5.89€ on Steam.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall received 648 positive votes out of a total of 698 achieving a rating of 8.69.
😎
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall was developed and published by Nostalgames.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is playable and fully supported on Linux.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is a single-player game.
There are 4 DLCs available for Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall. Explore additional content available for Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall on Steam.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall does not support Steam Remote Play.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 26 January 2026 10:12 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 24 January 2026 10:19 |
| Steam price | 28 January 2026 20:41 |
| Steam reviews | 27 January 2026 05:47 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
5
Developer
Nostalgames
Publisher
Nostalgames
Release
25 Mar 2018
Platforms
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