WWII RTS Preview

World War II is just about the hottest thing in gaming these days, and why not? The war was in many ways one of the greatest dramas in human history. It played out on a global scale, with millions upon millions of soldiers and civilians learning firsthand the horrors of tyranny and the costs of freedom. Of course, World War II makes a great subject for games now that it's more or less a thing of the past. You have your convenient and easily detested bad guys. You have fighting forces and battlefields from all over the world that gamers in many countries can relate to. You also have combat that took advantage of advanced technology without usually removing the soldier from the center of the fray like today's long-range computerized weapon systems can do. One of the stars of the World War II gaming scene is publisher 1C, which recently gave us Maddox Games' superb eastern front flight sim, IL-2 Sturmovik. While an IL-2 expansion is in the works, 1C is also preparing to offer us another WWII gaming experience, this time in the form of a real-time strategy game whose working title is, appropriately enough, WWII RTS.

We recently got to speak with Nikolay Baryshnikov, 1C's international sales director. While not directly involved in the development of the game on a technical level, Baryshnikov has a big hand in the overall vision of 1C's games. That's especially true of WWII RTS, since, as he says, it's "his baby." Both he and Yuri Miroshnikov, head of the entertainment and educational products division for 1C, came up with the core idea for the game, which will present some of World War II's most significant battles.

After the success of IL-2, why develop an RTS instead of another flight sim? Baryshnikov says that flight sims remain a "niche genre and our goal is to entertain as many people as possible. RTS is probably one of the most popular genres worldwide with millions of fans in every country. So we decided to target a wider audience this time. And based on our Sturmovik experience, we believe that we can deliver another great product, though in a different genre." In fact, the RTS will be built around a modified Sturmovik game engine, and the development team will include some of the folks behind IL-2.

When asked why 1C wants to stick with World War II as the theme of its next project, Baryshnikov says it's because the war is so widely known and so important for modern history. There are good practical grounds, too: 1C amassed lots of detailed historical data in creating IL-2, and it wants to apply that data to its RTS. "I also think," Baryshnikov says, "that many RTS's based on WWII lack realism and accuracy. It doesn't look right when a soldier can kill a tank with a pistol by shooting it a thousand times. Plus I see a definite trend in RTS development--gamers prefer reality and not sci-fi."

Keeping it Real

In fact, realistic detail will play a big part in WWII RTS. One doesn't normally associate the RTS genre with realism, and Baryshnikov had interesting things to say on that matter when we asked him if real-time strategy games and realism were contradictory. For him, "RTS stands mostly for real time. You are absolutely right that this [game] is mostly a wargame or a tactic[al] strategy [game]. Boy, I just hate all those genre definitions--now many games are multigenre."

As such, with WWII RTS you shouldn't expect to "harvest resources, build bases, and produce endless streams of units. Forget about it. Our game is somewhat similar to Close Combat, where you control a relatively small task force and have to kick some enemy butt within a certain mission. I would say that World War II [RTS] will give wargame fans a good chance to forget about hexes, turns, unit icons, etc.--offering smooth real-time gameplay and superb graphics in addition to historical accuracy and simulation."

Baryshnikov knows whereof he speaks, too. "I personally like wargames a lot," he notes. "I played all the Panzer General games, Close Combat series, Steel Panthers, etc." The design lessons of those games have played a part in shaping Baryshnikov's ideas for 1C's RTS.

It may sound like 1C is biting off more than it can chew by striving to make an accessible crowd-pleaser that's still historically accurate and appealing to hard-core WWII gamers. Baryshnikov admits it's no easy task, but "we found some tricks how to make two games in one. Hard-core players and history fans will find challenging missions, full realism, 100 percent historical accuracy, detailed unit management, and many other nice details. However, casual gamers will have many helpful AI options available, and they can play the game without caring what ammunition a tank should fire against soft [nonarmored] targets or which soldier to assign to a specific unit. Casual gamers that look for quick fun and great graphics will be pleasantly surprised. They will get a Hollywood-style RTS with gorgeous graphics." For 1C, the overriding goal is the fun factor, that blend of realism and exciting gameplay that grabs and keeps your interest regardless of your gaming background.

One of the ways 1C hopes to create that fun factor is by offering a scalable level of interaction between you and the game. "You can have full management over units, making all decisions for them, or you can let the AI select the optimal behavior routines." If you want pick-up-and-play fun, you can "just click on a unit like in Starcraft and then send it into battle. The AI will select the best path to target, which ammo to load, etc." If, on the other hand, you want to immerse yourself fully in the tactical details, you'll get to do so by defining the specific behavior of your units and telling them "to select a specific target, attack with a specific weapon or ammunition, avoid enemy fire or ignore it, etc."

The Machinery of War

Bearing in mind that the game is still quite early in development and tentatively scheduled to be released a year or so from now, here's more of what you can expect from 1C's WWII RTS. Overall, the game will try to offer a huge amount of material, likely covering major battles between 1941 and 1945. Those years make one think specifically of the Russo-German conflict during the war, but US, UK, German, French, Russian, and irregular partisan troops will all likely be represented, and possibly others as well.

Each force will be carefully researched and highly detailed, with the appropriate uniforms, like the distinctive camouflage pattern worn by Germany's Waffen SS troops. Of course, a game like this is about combat, not clothing, and weaponry will be equally detailed. Says Baryshnikov: "You will have access to all small arms--from pistols and rifles to light antitank guns--dozens of tanks, APCs, field guns, and even air support units." Each weapon system will be rated for multiple attributes like range, rate of fire, antiarmor capability, and more. Furthermore, each individual shell from the larger-caliber weapons will be both calculated according to realistic ballistics and visually rendered.

You'll get to control up to 16 units directly, with a unit being defined as a combination of equipment and troops. A tank won't be a unit in its own right, but rather will become one once you assign properly specialized crew members to it. The same applies for machine guns and the other machinery of war. Overall, the game will likely have a platoon-level focus.

Since Baryshnikov is a fan of RPGs too, you can likely expect some human-resource management elements like morale and experience. The experience gained over the course of campaign missions will affect unit skills, while promotions can grant soldiers specific skills and perks.

Along with the units you'll control directly, such as guns, howitzers, mortars, and their crews, you'll also get some powerful indirectly controlled assets, like air support to provide bombardment or supply drops. Supply will play an important part in the game, with each unit being limited by the amount of ammo and/or fuel it has on hand. Fortunately, you'll sometimes get to capture equipment, even tanks. Why beg or borrow when you can simply steal from the enemy?

You'll likely get to send your men into battle in both historical and fictional missions, and there will probably be both a campaign mode and individual missions or skirmishes. Missions will typically present multiple primary and secondary objectives, as well as some optional objectives. Expect to test your leadership in a diverse array of mission types, including city assaults and defenses, ambushes, rescue missions, recon patrols, and more.

All this will be brought to life using an advanced IL-2 Sturmovik engine that will greatly improve on the level of detail found in that game. Baryshnikov is confident that his team is making "possibly the best-looking WWII game ever," with advanced visual effects, cinematic camera angles, and more. Expect highly detailed units, dynamic lighting from muzzle flashes lighting up the night sky, and more. Even in this very early state, the visuals are looking quite impressive.

1C's WWII RTS is certainly a very ambitious project, one that seeks to fit a huge amount of realistic action into a fun and accessible form. Creating it will undoubtedly be a challenging task, but if 1C can pull it off, World War II fans should get a really exciting game.