I don’t know if plans for conventional warfare during the Cold War were ever more than a fantasy dreamed up by generals, defense officials, and military contractors. Arguing that it was tank divisions and fighter squadrons keeping the peace during the Cold War—and not the world-ending arsenal of nuclear weapons maintained by the great powers—was both a dubious proposition and an enormously profitable one. At a time when war was never less practical or advisable, defense budgets swelled to purchase expensive, luridly destructive weapons.
I really hope some more people pick this up (it’s free, what have you got to lose?) but suspect that the majority of people who were interested had already picked it up in something like a GOG $1 sale before now.
It’s an interesting time for RTSs now that SC2 has more or less collapses in on itself (also now offering an entry point of “free”) and what new games are around are maybe not hitting that often or that large (eg does anyone run Ashes of the Singularity who isn’t using it as a DX12 benchmark?).
OK so this is a pain in the ass but you can play this in multiplayer right now:
The key primer info is [right here, at Massgate, a community that’s working on keeping World in Conflict multiplayer alive: http://www.massgate.org/multiplayer.php
Key watch-outs: remember to change the name of the .dll file in the root directory, and the custom maps belong in My Documents, and NOT in the World in Conflict install directory.
Even doing all this, it’s kinda dodgy and janky. But you can 100% get into games, and they are awesome!
I really appreciate this article and look forward to playing the game.
I remember seeing World in Conflict in a magazine back in the day and being enthralled with it, as I was a bit of a mil-sim/strategy nerd (like Rob though, the community surrounding that sort of stuff certainly kept me from seeking “like-minded” people). Its release being right around when I graduated high school and moved halfway across the country, it was kinda forgotten in the shuffle I guess. Not this time, though!
The way RUSE got pulled off-market because of military equipment licensing is bizarre to me. I am genuinely baffled as to why historical military equipment is subject to licensing? I never really understood how that went down.
You’ve played Wargame? Or Steel Division? Not at all a 1:1 replacement but good stuff in that tradition.
I played the first Wargame quite some time ago I should really go back and try it again. I just really liked the idea of making fake units/buildings to trick your opponent that I haven’t seen another game do since.
So no concerns for the online component vanishing in the future as the central server can be spun up by someone else (or even developed further) and pointed to by the client.
So disappointed the servers are down for this game. I was hoping they’d be full of newbies who had never played a game like this and I can feel good about my competitive gaming again.
I hope this is a sign they will do something with that style of game. I can’t really think of another multiplayer RTS like it.
