The game's general premise is to allow players to pick a side (United States, Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan) and then work their way across several battles within the war.

During battles in campaign mode, the player mobilizes a large variety of customizable units (tanks, aircraft, submarines, and warships) across a hexagon-shaped grid in order to defeat the opposing Allied or Axis forces controlled by the game's AI.

The game's North American publisher, Working Designs, donated 50 cents of every copy sold to the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.[2] Iron Storm was a minor hit in Japan.

[3] A Next Generation critic found that the cinematic sequences at least initially dispel the perception of strategy games as "dry", and noted that they can be turned off once their novelty fades and they become simply a means of slowing down the gameplay.

He complimented the ability to name the commander for each country, the numerous unit types, the sounds, and the brutal depiction of warfare.