A few years ago, gamers became sick of the World War II setting for military shooters, and were ecstatic when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare took the genre to modern times. Eventually, the military shooter genre went into the speculative future. Now, what’s old is new again, as Bulkhead Interactive has launched a Kickstarter for a new World War II shooter, Battalion 1944, using modern tech.
Bulkhead Interactive is a UK-based studio formed of two companies, Deco Digital and Bevel Studio. The two developers released Pneuma: Breath of Life, a picturesque adventure game using Unreal Engine 4. Their work with UE4 led to them getting nominated for a Develop Industry Excellence Award in July 2015.
Battaltion 1944 seems to be built with an eye towards eSports. According to Bulkhead, ”At its core, Battalion 1944 is a classic multiplayer first person shooter. Set in the battle locations of World War 2 with an emphasis on skill and rewards. Currently Battalion fields strong classic game modes such as Capture the Flag, Domination and Team Deathmatch. Alongside the classics we are experimenting with new game modes, we’ll be calling on Founder & Partner backers in the coming months to help us test and balance these new game modes. Battalion is an infantry based game, using weapons from the WW2 era, meaning precise aim with your Kar98, covering fire with your M1 Garand and quick thinking with your Thompson are key to success.”
As such, the developer will include competition ranking, called BattleRank, and clans, called Battalions. Members of a Battalion individually contribute to their group’s totals. The size of a Battalion will expand dynamically, depending on the size of the overall player base. ”In your Battalion, you can choose to play as a lone-wolf or create a Platoon (clan) with friends and other players.” At the end of a “Season”, players will win cosmetic rewards based on how they performed.
One of the encouraging aspects of the Kickstarter is that Bulkhead states the cost of the development will be £200,000, but the Kickstarter goal is only £100,000 - the team itself is supplying the other £100,000. They have also put aside the money that will be paid for taxes, Kickstarter and Amazon, so if they make the Kickstarter goal of £100,000, they won’t be short-funded.
Gamers interested in checking out Battalion 1944 can visit the official Kickstarter page here. They list May 2017 as the fulfillment date, but officially the game has no release date yet.
