Prisoner of War Preview

Nazis are using a POW camp as a cover for a V2 rocket facility.

A spy trying to uncover top-secret information in a World War II prisoner of war camp--it may sound similar to a popular 1960s television show named Hogan's Heroes, which featured a brash American pilot and a few cohorts who constantly made trouble for those in charge of the camp. While the premise and the main character's background are the same as those in Hogan's Heroes, you won't find any practical jokes or disturbingly comedic Nazi colonels in Prisoner of War, Codemasters' upcoming action-adventure game. In fact, the development team behind Prisoner of War has gone through the highly ambitious process of attempting to adapt an actual day in the life of a World War II prisoner of war into a game, and the results are quite surprising. While attempting to fulfill mission objectives, you'll have to pay attention to the everyday activities of a prisoner to avoid arousing suspicion among the guards. As an American World War II pilot captured by the Nazis and forced into the camp, your primary mission is to uncover any possible information regarding the possibility that the Nazis are using the camp as cover for a staging area for V2 rockets since they know that the Allies won't take the risk of bombing their own men.

Prisoner of War attempts to differentiate itself from the current crop of stealth-oriented action games by making it impossible for you to obtain weapons, such as guns, grenades, or rocket launchers. At first, this might seem like a ridiculous proposition, but it makes perfect sense--after all, would good what it do to kill prison guards if it would only heighten suspicion that there's an operative within the camp? That's not to say you'll be completely handicapped, as there are plenty of rocks scattered about different areas of the camp that you can use to dismantle searchlights or create a distraction by pelting a nearby object. Ultimately, the lack of weapons dramatically heightens the need for stealth, and within the first few minutes of your first mission, you'll immediately scan the area for potential infiltration and exit routes.

There aren't any traditional weapons in Prisoner of War.

You won't have to rely on plain sight to do most of your reconnaissance. During some missions, you'll find items that'll make it much easier to move undetected within the camp. For example, if you manage to successfully climb into the commandant's quarters, you'll find that there is a spyglass, which can use to view guards at greater distances, as well as a complete map of the camp. You can use this map in conjunction with Prisoner of War's radar system, which shows the location of guards--basically, it's similar to the radar system found in the Metal Gear Solid games.

In any stealth-oriented game, the AI must be designed to take a number of different scenarios into account. Codemasters has paid special attention to the AI in Prisoner of War, providing the guards with AI that's so realistic that they even have a sense of smell, even going so far as to provide the guards' dogs with an accurate sense of smell.