Sega is holding a belated fifth birthday party for Company of Heroes 2, the Eastern Front follow-up to its popular WW2 real-time strategy game. To celebrate, they’re giving Company of Heroes 2 away for free on Steam today, and discounting some of its better DLC.

Over the course of its (remarkably long) lifetime, Company of Heroes 2 has matured into a very solid RTS with a small but thriving competitive scene.

The core game’s solo campaign has you slogging your way around World War 2’s Eastern Front as a junior Russian commander. It’s a much grimmer story than the original Company of Heroes campaign was – grim enough, in fact, that sales of the game were at one point halted in Russia after people complained that it painted its war veterans in an overly negative light.

Whatever troubles its take on history has, Company of Heroes 2 remains mechanically solid. Fraser Brown gave it an 8/10 in our review, and applauded how it built meaningfully on the original title. At the time, he said it was one of the best RTS he’d played in quite some time.

Fraser was even more impressed with Company of Heroes 2’s standalone campaign expansion, Ardennes Assault – check out his thoughts on that in his 9/10 review. Until tomorrow, you can pick that up at 75% off, or $4.99 (£3.74).

The rest of the DLC for the game, excluding two packs created as charity benefits, are also 75% off this weekend.

Company of Heroes 2 has been given away for free before, but if you missed your chance last year, or if you’ve just been hankering for a WW2 RTS that isn’t yet another invasion of Normandy or Operation Market Garden, this is a nice early Christmas present.