Looks like Theatre of War, the WW2 realtime strategy game developed by russian developer 1C isn't vaporware anymore and will actually see the light of day. Battlefront.com (creators of the Combat Mission series) will publish the game, which is scheduled for release thise year. Very good news indeed, since that means we WW2 grogs will get something to play until the WW2 version of CMx2 is released.




EDIT: Website is up!

Oh my god! Great news! Graphics are outstanding. I am sure that with Battlefront this game can't be arcadish. I think uses SpeedTree.

With a good multiplayer, this can be impressive.

Thanks for the info... I was following this way back when, glad to see it's still around.

Great news!

168 new Pics:
http://www.battlefront.com/products/tow/index.html

Dont miss the vid:
ftp://ftp.battlefront.com/pub/misc/tow/Infantry_Crawling.avi

Interview at armchairgeneral.com:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/articles.php?p=2806&page=1&cat=59

Seems it will still be an arcade game.

Engagement ranges for tanks are 500 meters or less, so real armor tactics, armor penetration and gun statistics don't matter a lot. So only limited tank realism.

Infantry can not enter buildings and defend from them - so if you have to defend a rural village, you can only place your guys outside in the open and not in the good cover of a house. So only limited infantry realism.

Mission Editor may or may not happen, map editor very unlikely - so only limited replay value.

All I'm seeing is great graphics but it doesn't sound like it will come any close to CMBB in gameplay value.

Here is no 500m limit, only in the interface info. And dont forget the nice trenches for the infantry..

The maps have a layout that mostly prevents LOS of over 500 meters. That is made on purpose since the maps are just 2x2km playable area.

And trenches...sorry, if Infantry is to hold a rural village, they would use houses. A game that doesn't allow for the most basic infantry tactics in a inhabitated area isn't very real in my book.

I love how, if you go to the website and click on the links for the video, you have to click on 50 links until you FINALLY GET WHAT YOU WANT!

Jesus...

http://files.filefront.com/ToW+Infantry+Crawling/;5318145;;/fileinfo.html

See that? That link takes 12 hours to get to if you go by the site. They couldn't just link to that?

I agree with RSColonel_131st to some extent. When I saw the first screenshots a few year back I couldnt stand the clean and flat landscape without cover.

I hope they do it like in Combatmission with abstract terrain representation and cover values.

The latest screenshot editions are showing an amazing Theatre of War environment:






Having migrated to sims and shooters over the past years, I think Theatre of War is going to bring be back to 'wargaming' all over again!

Game's site is up (diffirent from the above-mentioned).

http://games.1c.ru/ww2ru/?action=materiel

It's only in Russian but on-line translator does a pretty good job. Loads of info there.

Two more realism compromises:

Bridges can not be destroyed or blocked (are there placeable Mines in?)

No on-map mortars (50mm, 82mm) for the initial release. These were often crucial tools to take out heavy MGs or AT-Guns, so I can't really see how this game wants to be realistic while taking away basic infantry weapons (every german platoon almost all trough the war had a 50mm mortar).

You can't occupy houses? Where did you read that? Was that in the AAR and I just missed it? If true, it pretty much scratches the game off my "to buy" list.

I was hoping for a worth 3D successor to Close Combat (Squad Assault just never really seemed to work as well as its 2D predecessor, and I could never wrap myself around CM's WeGo system). I can take a few realism compromises such as 2kx2k maps or non-destroyable bridges (you couldn't in CC except in a few select maps), but not being able to enter houses in a squad level WW2 tactical game is like no having sonar in a sub sim . . .

I'd have to agree, there seems from what information's been released that there's some gaping holes in this one (Infantry can't enter houses for example).

Having said that, I'll rather wait and see what happens with the release version. If these ommisions are still there, then I'll cross it off my list.

Several issues:

The ranges of heavy weapons have been limited to half their normal range. This includes adjusting penetration down as well. Kind of screws tank warfare. They have said they will revisit this issue.

No smoke. I don't see how a game can really call itself graphically or historically realistic with allowing smoke.

No buildings are usable. BFC has rationalized this by saying that buildings weren't important in rural combat. I have seen a couple of posters really take them to task on that. BFC says this will be addressed in a later release.

No on-map mortars. Supposedly this is due to animation issues. I did notice animation issues didn't stop crewed guns from being available. No mortars will really unbalance historical scenarios.

It looks like a practical limit of 15 to 20 squads is likely due to processing power. This looks like the same scale as the CC games. In other words, most laptops will be hard pressed.

No map editor

No real scenario editor

Is it me or is this the first time we have seen BFC really more excited about graphics than realism. Up to this point I could always could count on BFC to be the one publisher that took a stand and said realism in a wargame is more important than seing every leaf on a tree. No bleeding edge graphics without enhancing playability from a wargaming standpoint. Now everytime someone points out something out of whack in ToW, BFC's reposnse is "Yeah, but did you see how neat that looks". That concerns me a little.

One good thing is it seems to have drawn a new crowd to BFC. Unfortunately for wargamers, that crowd seems to have come straight over from the UbiSoft forums. This will probably be good for BFC's bank account, but I have a feeling that this will alienate a portion of their core audience.

That one is directly off the TOW forum at Battlefront.

What bothers me is that I guess I expected a realistic WW2 RTS from the same company that made Combat Mission. Now, slowly and bit by bit, information comes out that says this game will miss crucial features. Most important:

*Weird engagement ranges and penetration values for Tanks
*Infantry can not enter buildings (no spotters in church towers, no cover in villages)
*No mortars to take out enemy AT Guns or HMGs...crucial weapons they were
*Mission Editor not yet confirmed, no way to easily get new maps - replayability concerns

On the other hand, a few features pop up that aren't all that realistic: German infantry taking over polish AT Guns and firing them, for example. I doupt that every Private at the start of the war could manipulate the controls of an AT Gun and actually hit something with it.


With more and more info, it seems as this is just "a RTS that trys to be realistic" but not nearly in the same leaguge as CC or CM.

So I'm not the only one getting that strange feeling. Good to know.

Sorry for the third post in a row, but just found another piece...Infantry can not ride on tanks.

Which has been a very common tactic for the russian side to bring their soldiers into battle.

In the words of the developer:

So I guess it is indeed a case of visuals over substance. Mortars were removed for the same reasons...they didn't finish the animations for them.

Unfortunately sacrificing game content and realism for eyecandy has been happening for some time now.

I first noticed it in flight sims. Now it seems to be spreading fairly quickly through other genres. The Total War forums for example are full of posts from disheartened long time fans that feel Creative Assembly has "sold out" by improving the graphics to attract a wider audience at the same time as "dumbing down" the game to make it more accessible to a wider audience (ie: sacrificing content for eyecandy).
Now I have to say I don't necessarilly completely agree with their sentiments, but there is no doubt the trend is there.

Seemingly the majority of gamers nowadays want instant gratification and are not prepared to invest the time needed to learn a control system more complex than "point there and press fire."

Unfortunately, since that's the way it seems developers have to go to make money (by increasing the target audience and therefore the number of units moved) I think we're going to be stuck with a situation where, instead of being able to have a complete package with realism and content along with pleasing, up to date, graphics, we'll have to choose between the two. And I'm afraid to say I think the options offering realism and depth of content won't be around for long since the developers of that type of product will not be able to move enough units to maintain a viable business structure. Especially when the situation is worsened by publishers getting greedy for their return and pressuring the developers to push the product out the door (hence a list of unimplemented features due to "lack of time").