RTSGuru was fortunate enough to be able to run a couple questions by the team behind the upcoming game Wargame: European Escalation. Read along to see what Alexis Le Dressay had to say about the enormous size of their maps, multiplayer and what will set Wargame: EE apart from the rest of the genre.
RTSGURU: First of all, thank you for taking the time to sit down and answer a few questions about Wargame. Maybe we should start simple by asking who you are and what it is you do on Wargame: European Escalation?
Alexis Le Dressay: It is pleasure! I am Alexis Le Dressay, Creative Director of Eugen.
RTSGURU: WG:EE is shaping up to be a unique strategy game that blends real-time action with a near-massive open world. What motivated the decision to leave such a huge battlefield open for your players? How big are the maps themselves?
Alexis Le Dressay: We have always thought that RTS games were suffering from small maps that don’t exist in the real world. 10 years ago, it was understandable because computers were not as powerful as they are nowadays. Now we believe there is no more excuse ;). Big maps and long-ranged weaponry are giving the players more pleasure when engaging units in combat since they have more space for manoeuvres. Players may therefore engage the enemy and pull back to another position in a typical hit-and-run tactic, or fix its main force while trying to surprise his opponent in a wide flanking movement, …
RTSGURU: What can you tell us about the game’s multiplayer component? Are we looking at multiple scenarios and gameplay modes, or are we looking at a straight 4 v 4 (for example) format? How many players can expect to dive into multiplayer together?
Alexis Le Dressay: In our previous title RUSE, we have noticed that much more players love big battles engaging 8 players than it was the case with Act of War. Thanks to better internet connections, this experience is very appealing to the majority of multiplayer gamers.
We are going to offer multiple gameplay modes (total destruction, time limit, capture the flag …) and the unique ability to play 1 against 7!
RTSGURU: Obviously, here at the site we’re quite excited for the game. What are some of the features that excite you and the team about the game that will set it apart from other strategy games on the market?
Alexis Le Dressay: Wargame is a total tribute to war-games we loved when we were younger such as Perfect General, Steel Panthers … We have made our best to offer the same richness as they did, as well as providing the best accessibility to allow any strategy fan to jump easily into the game.
RTSGURU: What can you tell us about the availability of the units within the game? Will the units of all nations affiliated with their faction (NATO and the Warsaw Pact) be available to the player? Will you have to accumulate experience in order to unlock certain units?
Alexis Le Dressay: No, not all units will be available for each side at first. The player will have to earn Research points by completing scenarios with the best score possible, achieving special objectives, in order to unlock new variants, vehicles or prototypes. The more advanced, the more expensive… Experience, on the other hand, will indeed be accumulated by individual units, but it will only affect the said unit’s abilities on the battlefield, like better aiming, faster reloading, …
RTSGURU: Can we expect to see a number of different scenarios/maps for the single-player campaign?
Alexis Le Dressay: WarGame will feature several ‘Operations’, or short campaigns, each based on a different “what if?” scenario, and each Operation will itself be divided into missions set on different battlefields. All single-player campaign’s maps are based on actual locations in Germany, France, Poland and (former) Czechoslovakia.
RTSGURU: As Wargame centers around a ‘hypothetical’ war, what was the strategy in compiling these battles, as there were no actual battles on which to base it? Is there lore behind Wargame, beyond the “What if” presentation?
Alexis Le Dressay: There were no actual battles, indeed, but had the international situation turned to worse, both sides knew where the fighting would have occurred. Both NATO and Warsaw Pact had plans prepared and honed for more than a decade, and knew where the main blows would come. In the (most obvious) case of a war taking place in Germany, the bitter fighting would have taken place in the Fulda Gap in the South and the North German Plain between the Baltic Sea and the Mittlegebirge. Both those “battlefields that never were” were mapped and prepared in detail by both sides, in order to attack and defend them.
Depending on the scenario’s point of divergence with “real” history, some battlefields, like Fulda are obvious, but we have also been letting our imagination wander on various storyline that may bring the war on more unexpected places…
RTSGURU: Near the middle of July, we saw some impressive screenshots coming out of the game that showed off the game’s powerful graphics engine. What can you tell us about the engine and its capabilities?
Alexis Le Dressay: WarGame features the second version of the Iris Zoom Engine which was used in RUSE. We have been working on and improving this fantastic engine which was very good for rendering big maps on consoles (ie small machines): now the player has the ability to zoom even closer to the units! And WarGame features maps with more than 60 million “objects” (a tree, a house is an “object”) where RUSE’s maps were limited to 15 million. We have also better FX than RUSE, thanks to an improved version of the FX system.
Still, WarGame players will have a great experience even if their hardware is old.
RTSGURU: With Wargame, are we looking at a PC/Windows exclusive, or can our Mac using friends expect to see the game as well?
Alexis Le Dressay: Our Mac friends will not be forgotten! We will give more information later.
RTSGURU: There’s some conflicting information floating around the internet with regards to a release date. Do we know when we can expect to be able to pick up Wargame: European Escalation?
Alexis Le Dressay: Mid November 2011!