Crowdfunded WW2 shooter Battalion 1944 hit its Kickstarter goal almost two years ago, but its console versions are still nowhere to be seen - and fans have become restless.

"We did it. Battalion 1944 is now confirmed to be fully in development for ‪Steam‬‬, ‪Xbox One‬‬ and‪ ‎PlayStation 4‬‬, bringing World War 2 into the next generation of video games!" developer Bulkhead Interactive wrote in February 2016.

But it is now November 2018, and little has been said of Battalion 1944's PS4 and Xbox One versions since. The last developer update on the game's Kickstarter is dated from this January, yet the campaign's comments page is still buzzing with activity - from dozens of console backers now asking for a refund.

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Bulkhead Interactive, the Derby-based studio behind Battalion 1944 and The Turing Test, is now making a brand new game for Square Enix.

Square Enix is already working with the studio to publish Kickstarter success Battalion 1944 in early 2019, after the WW2 shooter rounds out its current Early Access period, which has lasted most of the year.

This new deal sees Square Enix also become a 20 per cent shareholder in the studio.

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Indie first-person shooter Battalion 1944 launched yesterday via Steam Early Access, but servers struggled to cope with demand.

The game's issues now appear to be fixed, but it was a frustrating night for fans and developers of the game alike.

Studio lead Joe Brammer took personal responsibility for the launch in a heartfelt video, below, posted as part of a series of updates shared through Steam during the early hours.

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Battalion proclaims itself to be a stripped down, tackle-out, "old-school" multiplayer shooter. I find this an interesting statement, as to me old-school means rocket-jumps, glistening gibs and mind-bending level design - aka games that graduated with a first from the University of John Romero. Battalion, on the other hand, studied at Zampella polytechnic, as evidenced by the khaki browns and Wehrmacht greys, minimalist puffs of gore, and the presence of a prone key. Lesson number one, Battalion, nobody lies down in an old-school shooter unless they're dead. Now, onto nailgun aesthetics and implementation...

The key clarification here is that Battalion is an old-school World War Two shooter. At a basic level, this means "like the original Call of Duty multiplayer but with anti-aliasing." Yet the situation isn't quite that simple. Hidden behind Battalion's bullet-peppered Norman hedgerows are shades of Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat. It's a multiplayer shooter that hopes to cater both to simple arcade pleasures and more dedicated eSportsy types, rewarding skilful and measured play as much as it does bunny-hopping and pneumatic wrist-joints.

This isn't some incisive observation on my part. It's precisely how the beta was presented, offering both an "arcade" component that cycled between three maps and and three modes (the latter being team deathmatch, domination, and capture-the-flag) alongside a fourth, ranked mode called Wartide that offered a slight variant of Counter-Strike's bomb-defusal shenanigans. In both cases, players were split into two teams of five, assuming the role of either an allied or axis soldier, and could select from a range of weapons that includes rifles, sniper-rifles, sub-machine guns, or shotguns.

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Developer Bulkhead Interactive has announce that its old-school WW2 shooter, Battalion 1944, will launch in Steam Early Access on Thursday, February 1st.

Battalion 1944 first emerged back in 2016 when Derby-based Bulkhead Interactive - the studio behind Pneuma: Breath of Life, and the well-received first-person puzzler The Turing Test - launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund development of the project.

Its World War 2-flavoured first-person multiplayer focus, and the studio's stated aim to recreate the kind of action seen in early shooters like Call of Duty 2, clearly struck a chord with backers; the game reached its 100,000 target in less than three days.

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Battalion 1944 will cost just 11.99 when it launches next year in Early Access - less than the price of the crowdfunded game's lowest Kickstarter pledge.

In Europe that's €14.99, or in the US that's $14.99.

Those who have already paid more for the game via Kickstarter will get unique skins and cosmetic-focused loot crates.

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