Red Orchestra 2 occupies some space on my hard-drive. I keep it there, along with Sniper Elite V2 and Build & Shoot, to satisfy a basic need I have to shoot at a tiny cluster of pixels in the distance and hope that their widows are weeping come the end of the round. I’m not a super expert at it, but it’s satisfying enough for me to keep my sights trained on the upcoming Pacific-based Rising Storm, Tripwire’s mod-gone-pro expansion thing. (more…)

Killing Floor knows all about mods, having been one itself. They never tidy their rooms, leaving files scattered all over internets and hard drives alike, and trying to organise them is like trying to herd cats. The multiplayer horrorshow is gathering all its mods in one place, the increasingly active Steam Workshop, which should make keeping track of maps and modes much easier. Tripwire will also be adding Steam Workshop support to Red Orchestra 2, which is receiving a paid for expandomod by the name of Rising Storm. I’ve got a load of notes about that which I shall compile later this week. There are booby traps, flamethrowers and kamikaze bayonet stabbings, all of which I approve of in games though I frown at them in life.

Tripwire have released a bunch of footage of Rising Storm, narrated and explained by the lead dev. It shows some of the extremely diverse maps, as well as the combat in those environments. There’s some great detail in there, showing features such as Japanese riflemen using their grenades as boobytrap mines. Oddly, Heroes Of Stalingrad multiplayer is going to be included in this expansion, which basically means that by buying Rising Storm you’re going to get the meat of both games for free. That might raise a few eyebrows among the existing Red Orchestra onwership. Anyway, detailed nine-minute gameplay trailer below. Take a look! (more…)

Game development hint: if you’re going to place your game in a real setting, make it an island paradise. That way you can claim a holiday on company expenses. I’ll bet the developers of this officially supported mod have spent the last six months laughing it up in the Pacific while they brought Iwo Jima into Red Orchestra 2′s chilly war. The Rising Storm team are suntanned and well-rested, and celebrating their jaunt with the dramatic trailer of their work we present below.

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Red Orchestra 2 SDK at night, modders delight.> THAT should have been my headline, but alas it did not fit. Tripwire explain that these tools are now available to everyone who owns the game: “While the limited functionality preview versions of the SDK have been available to select modders for a while, this release now makes the full capabilities of the Mod SDK available to everyone. Users can now make and publish everything from simple mods and mutators, through custom maps and on to full total conversion mods.” The chaps at Tripwire also point out that there are already some mods in progress with the pre-release SDK: Rising Storm, In Country Vietnam, and Iron Europe.

No, this storm is nothing to do with disgruntled gamers, and everything to do with with the Pacific rim-based expansion pack coming for Red Orchestra 2, which we have previously mentioned on a couple of occasions. 1c have, for some reason, released the first trailer, which you can see below. It’s looking a lot like Red Orchestra 2, only with more sunshine, more shattered palm trees, and 100% more US Army vs Japanese military. The expansion is currently dated for “2012″, which according to my calendar is next year. (more…)

Tripwire Interactive have released a large statement on the “the state of the game” for Red Orchestra 2, a statement which you can read in full below. It addresses both the commercial success of the game and the technical failures in the opening weeks. The company admit that: “To put it bluntly, the game had a rough launch. We’ve been working diligently since launch to get these issues sorted and have made great progress fixing issues with matchmaking, VOIP, and stability as well as improving performance.”

The company claim to have addressed most of the issues, and will now be doing a stats reset due to problems with how people were earning stats and achievements. Hopefully things will be smoother sailing from here. We’ve requested an interview with Tripwire to talk about some of these issues and future prospects for the game. (more…)

Last week’s launch of Red Orchestra 2: Heroes Of Stalingrad was a troubled one. With a seemingly overwhelming number of players reporting bugs and performance issues, it stumbled into commercial release still reeling from the flashbangs of development. Can Tripwire’s brutal shooter sequel get past this quagmire of problems and snatch victory from the jaws of crashbugs? Here’s Wot I Think.> (more…)

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is now a game you can play. If you buy it. Which you now can. This is the standard of journalism you get from me after 1am. Far better to ignore me and watch the launch trailer below.

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Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad – first it had a name, then it had some screenshots, then it had some videos and now it has a release date. And so the cosmic ballet continues. Tripwire’s next commercial take on the masterfully dour World War 2 mod-gone-pro has been in the offing for a good few years, but now? Now it’s only months away. To war, gentlemen. Well, nearly.
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