Squad Tactics

Get acquainted with the Conflict team in this new trailer.

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Conflict: Global Terror is the fourth and latest entry in the long-running Conflict series of tactical, team-based shooters, and it's the first one to use a contemporary military setting. The game will offer refinements in just about every conceivable area of gameplay, not to mention an entirely new engine. In our first designer diary, Jim Bambra from Pivotal Studios breaks down the game's storyline and the squad that fans of the series have come to know and love.

Reforming the Squad

Look for some familiar faces in your squad in Conflict: Global Terror.

When we started to design Conflict: Global Terror, we decided that it would be great to use the same Special Forces team as had been featured in Conflict: Desert Storm I & II. After doing two games with these guys we knew them very well and were keen to develop them further. Many Conflict players were also great fans of the characters and were demanding their return.

This time we wanted to do something a bit different. While everyone knew that Bradley was the leader, Connors was the heavy weapons expert, Jones took care of demolitions, and Foley was the sniper, little was known of their personalities. While everyone at Pivotal plays Conflict games slightly differently, many people thought of the characters in similar ways. Bradley emerged as "the mission must come first" leader; Connors as the brash and aggressive action hero; Jones as the worrier; and Foley as patient and cautious, as befits his role.

Having sketched out the characters, we then explored how they would work in a team dynamic. We wanted to show the characters discussing what was going on, offering their opinions on events, and generally having a good-natured go at each other. Then to spice things up, we got rid of Foley partway through the game and introduced a new female sniper. Now the team had to deal with the loss of a long-standing member, but also integrate a new member at a time when it becomes apparent that someone was setting them up. All this has enabled us to grow the characters and show them as real people.

The Story

Global Terror is the first Conflict game to use a contemporary setting.

Conflict: Global Terror is set in the fall of 2006. Its near-future storyline is based on real events as well as recognized terrorist threats. Early on, the decision was made to focus on terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda. A look at known terrorist groups showed them spread across the world; each interested in their own goals, but also loosely linked to one another. At the same time we spoke to our expert consultants who confirmed that terrorist groups often traded weapons and drugs with each other, and were even known to carry out terrorist attacks for one another.

After two games set in the deserts of the Gulf and one in the jungles of Vietnam, we'd pretty much had enough of those environments. It was time to do something more varied and on a global scale. Rather than go for a loosely linked series of defeating terrorists wherever they appeared, we needed to link them together in an overall story arc which would end in a major world-shaking event. To do this we needed a backstory that would link the terrorist groups together but also personally involve the team. From this the characters of a double agent, and terrorist organizer Karl Mandel, were born.

In the early phases of the game, Mandel appears as a target to be captured. He is to be brought in for interrogation. As the game starts, he's known to be in Colombia dealing with a narco-terrorist group. A high-profile member of the team's organization is on Mandel's payroll and tips him off about the team. The team is captured by the narco-terrorists, but manages to escape and finally capture Mandel. Unfortunately, this isn't achieved without a price to pay. Foley goes MIA and is left behind by the team. At this stage the team is unaware who betrayed them, but they link Foley's disappearance directly to the traitor.

A series of events unfolds that takes the team to South Korea, the Ukraine, Chechnya, North Africa, the Philippines, and finally to the mountains of Kashmir. Along the way the team gets to fight terrorists in the streets of Seoul, at a chemical plant, in a nuclear reactor at the time of meltdown, a jungle base, and at a Korean village and bunker complex. As they do so they discover more about Mandel and find out who has betrayed them. The organization that Mandel and the traitor work for also becomes apparent, and their plans for global destabilization are revealed. The story builds towards its climax with Mandel inciting a major war. At the end, it's a race against time to stop Mandel and avert a major terrorist threat.

Your latest mission will send you all over the globe as you try to stop terrorist leader Mandel.

The backstory was designed to fulfill many different but related goals. It had to present an exciting and plausible series of events involving terrorist activities as diverse as holding hostages and planting dirty bombs. It also had to depict terrorism on a global scale, and build towards a dramatic conclusion. And it also had to provide a narrative that would involve the team personally and give them reasons to be out risking their lives. It had to provide stunning game environments and greatly varied mission objectives. Most importantly, it had to be fun!

Check out the members of the squad over the next two pages.