Preview - Wargame: European Escalation

Wargame: European Escalation is an upcoming title from Eugen Systems, the people who brought you Act of War: Direct Action, one of the the highest rated RTS titles of 2005, and R.U.S.E, a multi-platform release (including console; I know, just put down your pitchforks for a moment) which has been generally well received.


Wargame is attempting to build on the concept of a large, open-map style RTS that we first saw displayed in all it's glory in the games predecessor, R.U.S.E.  In an interview with RTS Guru, Eugen Systems Creative Director Alexis Le Dressay spoke on some of the influences of Wargame:

 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...

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...

This sounds great so far.  Le Dressay further comments on the Iris engine, which was responsible for the seamless zoom from strategic board to individual unit in R.U.S.E.:

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.

 Now, all that sounds fine and dandy, but there is one thing that worries me.  Before R.U.S.E was released, the publisher -Ubisoft- pushed for the use of their oppressive DRM, with it's record of failure.  Mercifully, the decision was reversed, and R.U.S.E. was released with the Steamworks API, the lesser of two evils.  Ubisoft has since relented and withdrawn it's requirement of an internet connection for all but initial authentication and multiplayer, and it may only be as invasive as Steam now.  But, seeing as W:EE is not being released with Ubisoft this time around, and has made no official announcement that I could find regarding a DRM, the rumor mill has concluded that there won't be any.  Now isn't that a breath of fresh air!