Codename: Panzers First Impressions

Codename: Panzers is an upcoming World War II real-time strategy game that falls into the middle ground between wargame and real-time strategy. Though it's billed as a real-time strategy game, it does not involve any of the base-building or unit-construction associated with traditional real-time strategy games. Instead, like a real-life military commander, you will be given a certain number of infantry squads and vehicles at the beginning of a mission, and you'll have to employ them properly to accomplish your objectives. And though the game will feature amazing levels of historical accuracy and detail--enough to make a veteran wargamer proud--it's not being designed to be a wargame. Instead, Codename: Panzers is being developed to be a beautiful and fun strategy game that any gamer, including beginning ones, could enjoy.

The world of Codename: Panzers is both beautiful and completely destructible.

The game is being developed by Stormregion, a Hungarian developer whose previous credits include the humorous real-time strategy game SWINE. Codename: Panzers is Stormegion's attempt to tell a more-serious and interesting story. You'll follow the adventures of various "heroes" who represent each side in the war, and you'll command German, Soviet, American, and British units in battles. You start off playing as German Wehrmacht officer Hans von Gröbel, a real-life figure, at the start of the invasion of Poland in 1939. Gröbel's story, and that of the other heroes, will be told through more than 100 cutscenes and diary entries.

Stormregion felt that it had to develop a graphics engine capable of rendering in-game scenes, because prerendered cutscenes take the gamer out of the experience. In-game cutscenes aren't unusual in most real-time strategy games, but what Stormregion has in mind is much more ambitious. To tell a personal story, the game needs a graphics engine capable of rendering both the traditional top-down look of real-time strategy games and the close-up, lifelike characters found in adventure games. For example, in one scene, you'll watch as German infantry storm into a building to wage a firefight against the partisan fighters inside. One soldier will even jump on a table to shoot at the enemy. This animation is delivered in such a way that it looks like it belongs in a prerendered cutscene. However, it's actually rendered in real time.

Prior to beginning a mission, you'll be able to requisition units at a warehouse, and you'll be able to purchase new units--provided you can afford them. You earn requisition points by completing primary and secondary mission objectives, as well as by uncovering secret objectives and destroying the enemy. During the warehouse phase, you'll also be able to equip existing units with special equipment. You can give an infantry squad an inflatable raft that it can use to cross a river, or you can give it mine-detecting equipment so that it can clear minefields. And as a neat gesture to those gamers who don't know the difference between a T-34 and a German 88, Stormregion plans to have a "testing ground" that will let you take any unit or vehicle on a "test-drive." Without leaving the warehouse screen, you'll be able to maneuver the unit on a small battlefield, and you can shoot at dummy targets to get a feel for its capabilities. This should help familiarize new gamers, who might otherwise get scared by all the detail, with Codename: Panzers' units and vehicles.

Once you've finished requisitioning new units, you'll start a mission. Even at this early stage, it's clear that the game is quite beautiful. Everything is rendered in impressive detail, from the vehicles to the buildings and environment. The illusion is aided by the fact that objects move correctly, thanks to the built-in physics engine. As a result, trees sway in the wind, while tanks and vehicles rock on their suspensions. (The development team actually went so far as to analyze the suspension systems of many tanks and vehicles to determine the relationship between vehicle weight and suspension.)

Infantry battle it out in one of the game's richly detailed environments.

Everything in the game will be destructible, save for the terrain itself. Tanks can knock down trees and fences, and artillery and bombs can gut towns and buildings. Damage modeling will also be very accurate. In fact, Stormregion is going to such depth that it is using historical data to model the thickness of armor on vehicles. Unlike other real-time strategy games, where machinegun-equipped infantrymen can destroy a tank with massed fire, firing a machine gun at a tank in Codename: Panzers will only scratch its paint. To destroy a tank, you're going to need something that can hurt it, such as another tank, a bazooka, or a panzerschreck team.