Haven't seen a thread about this one yet, but I imagine there might be a few Red Orchestra/Rising Storm fans here who might be interested.
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I, for one, am hyped about this. Over the years, the Red Orchestra/Rising Storm series of games have been the only ones that really excite me. RS2 is still the only online FPS I regularly play. It strikes just the right balance of realistic feeling and impactful gunplay and player movement, authentic weapons and settings, and large-scale, objective-based infantry combat - but does away with concepts like medics and detailed logistics management in favour of wave reinforcement respawns. Which means that it feels realistic, but there's plenty of action and the game never puts realism in front of fun - "accessible realism". You can dive into the game for an hour or so and be guaranteed plenty of action.
As a very brief history - Rising Storm 2 (which grew out of the Red Orchestra series) was developed by Antimatter Games, who then went on to start two other projects, a Project IGI continuation, and '83, an online only tactical shooter in a similar style to RS2. Eventually they canned '83, but then Blue Dot Games (which I think is formed of ex Antimatter devs, including those who worked on the RO series and the original Insurgency bought) the IP and have started actively developing it again - hence the reannouncement.
Unfortunately, RS2 was pretty much abandoned in 2019 (apart from a couple of recent patches) so I've been left feeling a bit downhearted that no other game scratched the same itch - I tried Squad for a while, but got bored of spending hours in games doing not a lot - digging fortifications, staring at a black screen waiting for a medic - I just don't have the time to devote to hugely long games anymore, and it's a game which is absolutely reliant on having good squad leaders. Same for Post Scriptum/Squad 44. Hell Let Loose seemed to be the best successor, but some of the gunplay and mechanics I found frustrating and it never grabbed me. Insurgency: Sandstorm has fantastic gunplay and realistic settings, but it's pretty small scale. Battlefield, CoD - none of these are on my radar really, all too fast paced for my aging reactions
'83 looks like the only chance of a game which is going to continue that spirit, so I'm pretty invested in it succeeding. So if you have any interest at all, please wishlist the game on Steam and share it around, as I think games like these tend to be pretty niche and it deserves every chance it can get.
'83 on Steam
‘83 is a Cold-War-Gone-Hot, combined arms, squad-based, tactical online FPS build around the idea of 'accessible realism' - which is all about making the gameplay feel as realistic as possible, until it stops being fun. And then we wind the realism back a notch to keep the mechanics enjoyable!
I, for one, am hyped about this. Over the years, the Red Orchestra/Rising Storm series of games have been the only ones that really excite me. RS2 is still the only online FPS I regularly play. It strikes just the right balance of realistic feeling and impactful gunplay and player movement, authentic weapons and settings, and large-scale, objective-based infantry combat - but does away with concepts like medics and detailed logistics management in favour of wave reinforcement respawns. Which means that it feels realistic, but there's plenty of action and the game never puts realism in front of fun - "accessible realism". You can dive into the game for an hour or so and be guaranteed plenty of action.
As a very brief history - Rising Storm 2 (which grew out of the Red Orchestra series) was developed by Antimatter Games, who then went on to start two other projects, a Project IGI continuation, and '83, an online only tactical shooter in a similar style to RS2. Eventually they canned '83, but then Blue Dot Games (which I think is formed of ex Antimatter devs, including those who worked on the RO series and the original Insurgency bought) the IP and have started actively developing it again - hence the reannouncement.
Unfortunately, RS2 was pretty much abandoned in 2019 (apart from a couple of recent patches) so I've been left feeling a bit downhearted that no other game scratched the same itch - I tried Squad for a while, but got bored of spending hours in games doing not a lot - digging fortifications, staring at a black screen waiting for a medic - I just don't have the time to devote to hugely long games anymore, and it's a game which is absolutely reliant on having good squad leaders. Same for Post Scriptum/Squad 44. Hell Let Loose seemed to be the best successor, but some of the gunplay and mechanics I found frustrating and it never grabbed me. Insurgency: Sandstorm has fantastic gunplay and realistic settings, but it's pretty small scale. Battlefield, CoD - none of these are on my radar really, all too fast paced for my aging reactions
'83 looks like the only chance of a game which is going to continue that spirit, so I'm pretty invested in it succeeding. So if you have any interest at all, please wishlist the game on Steam and share it around, as I think games like these tend to be pretty niche and it deserves every chance it can get.