In gaming, how many times have you found yourself storming the beaches or Normandy, or fighting in Europe, and Russia? Far too many I’m sure. Most gamers are tired of the World War II genre in gaming. Let’s face it, it’s starting to get old, but what if developers were to look at the era from a different perspective?
Far too often now, developers find themselves thinking too linear with where to go in a WWII game. Games like Hour of Victory, Medal of Honor Airborne, and even Call of Duty 3 find themselves guilty of that in this generation. Let’s face it World at War offered something a bit different, but still fell victim to being a typical WWII shooter for the most part.
Great Concept, AWFUL Game
As awful as a game like Turning Point Fall of Liberty was, it had a great concept that more developers need to find themselves exploring. Instead of taking us back to Normandy one hundred times, why not explore alternate realities? Turning Point hit the concept right on the head, but failed to deliver the goods. This shouldn’t stop other developers from at least trying.
The game tried to put us in an alternate reality of World War II. The Nazi’s invade due to a lack of involvement on our part in the war. America never advanced it’s military technology or developed the atom bomb. You’re fighting in the streets of NYC and Washington against the Nazi aggressors. Sounds pretty epic in many ways right? Well, it would have been if the game was made right.
Good Concept, Terrible game
Another not so great game that again had the right idea was Wolfenstein. The last installment of the series felt very poorly done, but had a not so bad premise to it. Magic, Zombies, Demons, and Nazi’s? Oh-My! Again like Turning Point, it sounds good in theory, but it was just another BAD game. It seems that these two games had good, if not great concepts, but they were just very poorly made.
Imagine a GOOD game where the Nazi’s invade and you have to take back the country? What about a game where the aggressor’s aren’t the Nazi’s but the British? Why not have the Russians attack the British and Germany never gets involved? How about WWII L4D style where a Nazi experiment goes totally wrong. How about Japan and the Nazi’s invade the US together?
Those are a few random ideas, but it shows there is still room left for WWII shooters in gaming. Just not your run-of-the-mill WWII shooter. Look at the success of the Nazi Zombie DLC for COD: WAW. It shows this sort of thing has potential to go somewhere.
A developer like Treyarch who is still charged with making the Call of Duty series on the years Infinity Ward does not, should take advantage of what they have and explore this. Just imagine Turning Point, but well made and with awesome multiplayer. Companies like Treyarch have the means to do this, so what stops them? There’s still things to explore with the WWII era in gaming, developers just need to start thinking outside the box.
**Disclaimer: In NO way do I think Turning Point or Wolfenstein are good games**
EDIT: I should have added Resistance Fall of Man to the list. It was a good game and took the WWII era and gave it it’s own twist. A prime example of what is being discussed in this post.
To be completely frank, I think the concept of ‘World War II shooters’ has been bled dry. Developers should attempt to come up with original ideas that aren’t based on scenarios surrounding WW2.
Game developers use the whole WW2 gimmick to make sure they don’t have to come up with original ideas for games. This is one area where games such as Modern Warfare 2 are attempting to be superior; at least they are trying to come up with original ideas.
I think they should redo WWII games with the graphics of MW2
agreed, and maybe they should key in on the realism of the game, like it doesn’t take 50 bullets to kill u with one gun, but only two with the other.
Yeah man this would be awesome way to revamp the WWII games
Yes I mostly agree that world war 2 had been played out more than ever needed. However I personally loved call of duty world at war (ww2) and thought it was a step forward in ww2 games. So I still love the ww2 games, but some things do need to change. I’m not sure what does, as that is not my job to come up with the ideas. But I can assure you that in the not very far future people will be complaining because the modern warfare has been played out. Maybe then the US will start another war just to make us gamers entertained = p.
i myself sort of disagree i enjoy learning or finding things out about WWII. WWII is one of my favorite things read, watch, or play, but it does get repetitive after a while since nothing really interesting happens.
also i enjoyed playing wolfenstein with upgrading all the weapons and powers.
given the fact that call of duty 2 was the last ww2 game to feature the battle of normandy in 2005 then it is safe to assume that game makers have gotten the message long ago
Hmm…maybe a game where you are a POW or a Jew during the holocaust? A stealth-based game, still killin’ Nazis, but from the inside of Germany.
That would be pretty awesome, I must admit.
Rather than a stealth (TenchuZ) game why not a realistic view on the corruption in the concentration camps. Like you as a jew but giving bribes, rating on ppl, etc untill you are almost running the camp from the inside. I can think of some good story lines for that.
How about The Saboteur? It is a WWII game where Sean(your character) fights against the nazi’s in France for his own reasons. I think more developers should make games more like The Sabotuer because it is a new idea, a great game, and it has some of the best things from other games changed slightly and placed in the game just making it even better.
I haven’t played it yet, so I cant say too much on it, but it is a game that should have been mentioned to some degree. I was more covering the FPS’s
But you did make a good point with that game
nice read man, ive always been really turned away from the world war 2 genre, since it seems to be a mix of the same things over again, though id be all for a game that twists history a little, how about having a game where you fight your way to hitler and wittness him shooting himself?
well, not all world war 2 battles were epic fights so if a game has a different take on the Normandy affair, I’ll take it. Other than that, for a game to focus on lesser, more boring fight it would have to not be a fast paced shooter like call of duty and medal of honor and focus on either a different kind of gameplay like brother in arms or story telling on a more personal level. In my opinion, ww2 should simply be discarded
I like all the Medal of Honor Games, Have loved them for a long time but I would love to see an alternate WW2 setting like in Turning point That would be awesome
Who could forget Day of Defeat and Day of Defeat Source??? Those games were HAWT!!
I agree with Jak Morris, but lets go the other way, such as the new Medal of Honor. How many good Vietnom, or even Korean War games are there. I know they weren’t huge wars, but I think the was they were fought and such could develop into a great game if done by maybe Treyarch, IW, or developer with those kind of resources.
Who needs WW2? lets see the Civil War, or even the Revolutionary War, hell even the War of 1812 lol
can you imagine they made something about the Revolutionary war? Loading the muskets would require a mini game.
i want a wwIII game
I would Love to see a WWI or WWII game from the canadian perspective, They had a large part in both wars and got throught alot that other armies could not.
Everyone is too obsessed with doing everything accurate for WWII games that they forget to give it a compelling storyline. I feel like Treyarch could have made an awesome WWII game w/ an awesome storyline, unfortunately they’ve confirmed their next game will stray from the the WWII era and feature a new war. Most speculation says Vietnam.
Wolfenstein reminded me of a rip off of an updated version of Hexen. The game that I thought was an awesome concept but the game turned out short is Timeshift. I thought that game is awesome. Warping through time in the first person view and having the chance to rewind time.
Here is what I want to see: new wars. American side I’d love to see a new Vietnam game. I’d LOVE to see a game based on the Korean War, it’s often called the Forgotten War because almost no one knows it yet it was a rather large deal. I’d also like to see games that aren’t based about America and it’s conflicts. Wars that are between two other countries without American involvement. There is more to the world than America. If we have to focus on WWII then I’d like to see a German perspective, and if we are talking world wars where the fuck is WWI? It was just as brutal and vicious in terms of slaughter. I guess it’s hard to make a game involving trench warfare. I’d also like to see more games based around old wars and not as RTS games. Like picture yourself playing as a knight or an archer in war with another castle. Or Middle Eastern armies battling or the Crusade armies and what not. African tribal wars. When it comes to making games based on war there are so many different ideas you can do it’s unreal. And this is just real life wars let alone the infinite imagination and creating entirely new races and worlds and galaxies and the intermingling of these beings.
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Id like to see a game that takes the POV of the German side. Not the SS or any of those guys of course, but the normal lowly Wehrmacht soldiers. The story could be really good for it. It could cover perhaps the invasion of Russia, the retreat (which could be filled with tons of escape scenes with tanks and jeeps and planes and stuff). And then the return to Germany for the last stand, and then the utter shock at realizing what the concentration camps were really for.
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Hmm. You know what I want to see. I want a really good World War 2 game that does what brutal legend did with RTS/ third person hack and slash sort of thing; Another way would be an Age of Empires style with first person added. You would pick any of the major participating countries and build up your army, tanks blah blah. You could attack anybody you wanted at any time and then have a huge battle on a single open battlefield from the first person view. There would be maybe 5-10 battlefields for each other country and once you win on all of them you would control that country (maybe you could take over little areas with a single battle.
Here’s the problem. This would probably take longer than two years to make. I’m gonna say a lot longer.
I always wanted to try Turning Point Fall of Liberty. But, never got money for it.
It’s really not worth it. It was a great concept that got attached to a BAD game
(by the way, I’m not saying it has to be a world war 1 or 2 game, just a war game)
All these war games are from one country’s perspective.
I know this would be pretty risky, but I wish a company would make a war game that had a campaign where when you start, you choose the country you want to fight for (maybe there would be 3 or 4 choices) and the campaign is a bit different at the beginning, but towards the end, it changes drastically compared to the other campaign choices.
Let’s say you choose Germany. You go through the campaign, you have different guns and such, and you can change history depending on how you do at certain battles. In the end, maybe Germany controls the majority of Europe and holds it.
Also, once your country gains power, I wish you could choose what place you want to invade. I would choose Canada and invade USA slowly.
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P.S. I realize this would be impossible because it would take more than a year to make.
I don’t that time should be a constraint. Remember Starcraft 2 has been in development for over 10 years, and most games nowadays take 2-3 years for development.
ehh, I was never a big fan of WWI shooters really but alternate stories or outcomes would be cool if done right. It’s all about the Aliens…lol
What I don’t see as often are WW II pilot games. Secret weapons over Normandy is one game which I love. It mixed the WW II element and the flying element and added historical facts(from the Evac of Dunkirk to D-Day),planes,weapon load-out,a good story and the graphics were great for a PS2 game. But this is my view and in my view anything that teaches you history while killing Nazi’s(and japanese) is a good game
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see I think you failed the understand the post. The point is taking the Era of time and putting a twist on it in some way. Making it an alternate reality of some kind.
Your way of thinking is why game developers are stuck with WWII shooters.
Maybe you should re-read the post.
One game that I didn’t note in here that I should have was Resistance Fall of Man. It was actually a good game that did exactly what I talk about here in this post.
It takes the WWII setting and puts a huge twist on it. It’s stuff like that that I would like to see more of. Like I said in the post, Nazi Zombies has a lot of potential.
Imagine just taking history and twisting it. Games are about fun and imagination. Have fun and let your imagination run wild.
If Turning Point or Wolfenstein had actually lived up to their concepts, we would have new WWII franchises to compete against today’s top shooters and I’d gladly go back to World War II if it was done properly. I wonder, though, if a WWII shooter that did everything well but didn’t have a pre-existing franchise name would sell well, or if we’re stuck with the community that will buy a game simply because of its name.
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