In the 1.10 update we are adding a new encounter map to the game. The map named ‘Colmar Hamlet’ takes place in a hamlet where opposing forces meet and fight over a handful of buildings.



Situated with open farmland to one side and a shallow creek, at the edge of a forest, on the other, the ‘Colmar Hamlet’ map gives you a fight where aiming and moving from cover to cover wins the day. One side deploys in the forest by the shallow waters ready to cross, either using the bridge or by running/driving through the shallows. Their enemy deploys in the farmland to the other side of the hamlet with the option of approaching on the road or through the fields.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM0rLZ8heg8

The map should be easy to navigate with a focus on aim and fire. For new players facing bots this helps them learn aiming and for the veterans it is a pure skill check on aiming over range.

The goals of the map is two-fold, new players should be able to enjoy playing with an easy-to-understand layout and experienced players should have fun with a map that has a rather different gameplay experience than the existing encounter map.

Engage the enemy at medium range, for new players playing against bots that lets them see enemy movement from a distance, for experienced players they better bring their A-game in aiming. The availability of chest-high cover that you can crouch behind gives you the ability to pop in and out of cover.

The flanking options are, on purpose, simple and obvious to make it easier for the map to be understood with no prior knowledge of the layout.

The layout is built on 3 main lanes plus a cross with difficult lane changes. See the gameflow design sketch below.



A wide deploy-zone makes suppressing it a lot more difficult and gives more of a front-line feel to the fighting.

By creating large scale navigational color identifiers in the terrain, with the yellow field and green forest, we help the player orient himself better.

The map focuses more on 2D horizontal gameplay and not so much a vertical challenge, making it a different experience than the other maps.

As reto.desji also touches upon in the video above, we are working on new assets for different types of maps, and we are working on more maps as well, so this is just the beginning!

In the 1.10 update we are adding a new encounter map to the game. The map named ‘Colmar Hamlet’ takes place in a hamlet where opposing forces meet and fight over a handful of buildings.



Situated with open farmland to one side and a shallow creek, at the edge of a forest, on the other, the ‘Colmar Hamlet’ map gives you a fight where aiming and moving from cover to cover wins the day. One side deploys in the forest by the shallow waters ready to cross, either using the bridge or by running/driving through the shallows. Their enemy deploys in the farmland to the other side of the hamlet with the option of approaching on the road or through the fields.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM0rLZ8heg8

The map should be easy to navigate with a focus on aim and fire. For new players facing bots this helps them learn aiming and for the veterans it is a pure skill check on aiming over range.

The goals of the map is two-fold, new players should be able to enjoy playing with an easy-to-understand layout and experienced players should have fun with a map that has a rather different gameplay experience than the existing encounter map.

Engage the enemy at medium range, for new players playing against bots that lets them see enemy movement from a distance, for experienced players they better bring their A-game in aiming. The availability of chest-high cover that you can crouch behind gives you the ability to pop in and out of cover.

The flanking options are, on purpose, simple and obvious to make it easier for the map to be understood with no prior knowledge of the layout.

The layout is built on 3 main lanes plus a cross with difficult lane changes. See the gameflow design sketch below.



A wide deploy-zone makes suppressing it a lot more difficult and gives more of a front-line feel to the fighting.

By creating large scale navigational color identifiers in the terrain, with the yellow field and green forest, we help the player orient himself better.

The map focuses more on 2D horizontal gameplay and not so much a vertical challenge, making it a different experience than the other maps.

As reto.desji also touches upon in the video above, we are working on new assets for different types of maps, and we are working on more maps as well, so this is just the beginning!

It is cold out there. Winter is coming – and so is Xmas!

At RETO MOTO we are working on getting the Update 1.10 ready for release, but we just had a piece of news that we just could not wait to share.



We had cake, we had a bit of bubbly to drink, and we were very happy this monday. Today we can tell you why:

RETO MOTO has secured an investment from entertainment company Nordisk Film. 

The investment is part of Nordisk Film’s overall strategy of investing in talented Nordic game development studios. RETO MOTO is the fourth investment so far from the company’s investment unit Nordisk Film Games that has already acquired minority positions in Avalanche Studios. Flashbulb Games and Multiverse.

“The deal with Nordisk Film is very exciting. Partnering with such a competent investor is a validation of our mission to deliver the ultimate WW2 game experience and it will help us realize RETO MOTO’s full potential. We have our eyes set on aggressive growth in the international gaming market and we are pleased to work with the team at Nordisk Film to achieve our objectives”, says Reto.JM in a statement released to the press this morning.

And you might reasonably ask: What is in it for me?

• This new investment will allow us to focus on pipeline upgrades in order to prepare for scale and serve you better.
• We will continue our efforts to put you, the players, first, in order to stay relevant to and provide you with the best service possible.
• Our mission, as one team, is to deliver the best large scale multiplayer experiences, starting with Heroes & Generals,which will expand internationally through this significant investment.

You might already know that we have an additional batch of vehicle paint jobs arriving in the 1.10 Update.

And you might also have had a look at them and thought: “Where is my favorite vehicle?”

Not to worry. We are working on even more vehicle paint jobs for future updates – like the much requested paint job for the Panther Ausf. G you see above.


In case you were ever wondering what the developers at RETO MOTO do at the yearly Xmas party – we play games!

Games are in the blood of each and everyone at RETO MOTO. We love designing games, programming games, writing about games, speaking about games. But most of all we all really like playing games.

That is why this year we had part of our Xmas Party at the ‘Bip Bip Bar’ in Copenhagen – a bar that is filled with all sorts of arcade games. We spend a few hours playing classics such as Outrun, Donkey Kong, Puzzle Bobble, Gyruss or the the Funhouse pinball machine from 1990.

Below you can see a couple of photos from the bar:




RETO MOTO Community Manager Reto.Circinus recently did a Q&A with the good people at the multigame/faction clan The Art of Warfare (taw.net) on TeamSpeak.

And of course the whole thing was streamed on Twitch. You can find it here.


Finally we wanted to say congratulations to Youtuber TheCobraLP for reaching 500 episodes in his series of ‘Let’s Play Heroes & Generals’. 

We are impressed by the amount of time and energy you, the players, put into doing stuff like Youtube videos about Heroes & Generals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgmcjqQ6Erg

It is cold out there. Winter is coming – and so is Xmas!

At RETO MOTO we are working on getting the Update 1.10 ready for release, but we just had a piece of news that we just could not wait to share.



We had cake, we had a bit of bubbly to drink, and we were very happy this monday. Today we can tell you why:

RETO MOTO has secured an investment from entertainment company Nordisk Film. 

The investment is part of Nordisk Film’s overall strategy of investing in talented Nordic game development studios. RETO MOTO is the fourth investment so far from the company’s investment unit Nordisk Film Games that has already acquired minority positions in Avalanche Studios. Flashbulb Games and Multiverse.

“The deal with Nordisk Film is very exciting. Partnering with such a competent investor is a validation of our mission to deliver the ultimate WW2 game experience and it will help us realize RETO MOTO’s full potential. We have our eyes set on aggressive growth in the international gaming market and we are pleased to work with the team at Nordisk Film to achieve our objectives”, says Reto.JM in a statement released to the press this morning.

And you might reasonably ask: What is in it for me?

• This new investment will allow us to focus on pipeline upgrades in order to prepare for scale and serve you better.
• We will continue our efforts to put you, the players, first, in order to stay relevant to and provide you with the best service possible.
• Our mission, as one team, is to deliver the best large scale multiplayer experiences, starting with Heroes & Generals,which will expand internationally through this significant investment.

You might already know that we have an additional batch of vehicle paint jobs arriving in the 1.10 Update.

And you might also have had a look at them and thought: “Where is my favorite vehicle?”

Not to worry. We are working on even more vehicle paint jobs for future updates – like the much requested paint job for the Panther Ausf. G you see above.


In case you were ever wondering what the developers at RETO MOTO do at the yearly Xmas party – we play games!

Games are in the blood of each and everyone at RETO MOTO. We love designing games, programming games, writing about games, speaking about games. But most of all we all really like playing games.

That is why this year we had part of our Xmas Party at the ‘Bip Bip Bar’ in Copenhagen – a bar that is filled with all sorts of arcade games. We spend a few hours playing classics such as Outrun, Donkey Kong, Puzzle Bobble, Gyruss or the the Funhouse pinball machine from 1990.

Below you can see a couple of photos from the bar:




RETO MOTO Community Manager Reto.Circinus recently did a Q&A with the good people at the multigame/faction clan The Art of Warfare (taw.net) on TeamSpeak.

And of course the whole thing was streamed on Twitch. You can find it here.


Finally we wanted to say congratulations to Youtuber TheCobraLP for reaching 500 episodes in his series of ‘Let’s Play Heroes & Generals’. 

We are impressed by the amount of time and energy you, the players, put into doing stuff like Youtube videos about Heroes & Generals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgmcjqQ6Erg

Saturday 11th of November was the day that RETO MOTO welcomed nine veteran Heroes & Generals players to its headquarters in Copenhagen to take part in the very first RETO Insider Summit.

The RETO Insider Summit – Fall 2017 focused on veteran players and engaged community members to meet with the developers of Heroes & Generals. To exchange ideas and points of views in a relaxed setting.

It is safe to say that we as game developers learned alot from meeting the nine invited Insiders – and we trust that they in turn also learned a bit more about who we are.



The Insiders were great at bringing community feedback and concerns with them to the individual activities during the summit, while also taking care to express their personal views upon Heroes & Generals.

We want to underline that meeting “just” nine Heroes & Generals players in person, does not mean that we believe that the views expressed during the summit necessarily express the views of every community members. That is why our community managers spend a lot of time in the various forums to keep up with what is going on.

In this report you will find the meeting minutes, summarizing what was talked about during the The RETO Insider Summit – Fall 2017. 

Be aware that a lot of the stuff talked about during the Summit are just ideas and not actual designs, nor reflects any actual decisions. While other things mentioned might be designs but are not in actual production.

In conclusion we at RETO MOTO are very happy with how the RETO Insider Summit turned out. And we look forward to planning and executing the next one.

You can download the full Meeting Minutes as a PDF by clicking this link.

Saturday 11th of November was the day that RETO MOTO welcomed nine veteran Heroes & Generals players to its headquarters in Copenhagen to take part in the very first RETO Insider Summit.

The RETO Insider Summit – Fall 2017 focused on veteran players and engaged community members to meet with the developers of Heroes & Generals. To exchange ideas and points of views in a relaxed setting.

It is safe to say that we as game developers learned alot from meeting the nine invited Insiders – and we trust that they in turn also learned a bit more about who we are.



The Insiders were great at bringing community feedback and concerns with them to the individual activities during the summit, while also taking care to express their personal views upon Heroes & Generals.

We want to underline that meeting “just” nine Heroes & Generals players in person, does not mean that we believe that the views expressed during the summit necessarily express the views of every community members. That is why our community managers spend a lot of time in the various forums to keep up with what is going on.

In this report you will find the meeting minutes, summarizing what was talked about during the The RETO Insider Summit – Fall 2017. 

Be aware that a lot of the stuff talked about during the Summit are just ideas and not actual designs, nor reflects any actual decisions. While other things mentioned might be designs but are not in actual production.

In conclusion we at RETO MOTO are very happy with how the RETO Insider Summit turned out. And we look forward to planning and executing the next one.

You can download the full Meeting Minutes as a PDF by clicking this link.

For the second year in a row Valve is inviting the Steam Community to nominate games for the prestigious Steam Awards.

This year the number of categories has gone from eight to an impressive twelve different categories. And if none of these fits you – you just create your own award category. No matter what it would be fantastic if you would consider nominating Heroes & Generals for an award.

You just need to do it before november 28th @ 19:00 CET / 10am PST.



It is a simple matter to nominate Heroes & Generals for one or more Steam Awards – and you will even earn Steam Badges for doing so.

• Stop by our Steam Store page.
• Click the Steam Awards banner.
• Choose the category you think we should be nominated for.

The imaginative people at Steam have come up some really cool awards categories like the “Mom’s Spaghetti”- and “The World Is Grim Enough Let’s Just All Get Along” Award.
However, we really do like the “No Apologies” Award.
“This is the award you give to a game that you love unconditionally. Does the game have some faults? Maybe. Do other people not understand your love for it? Sure. But make no mistake. There is no guilt here. Only pleasure,” as Steam writes about the award.
This is a description that we believe that you players feel fits Heroes & Generals, just perfectly.

• Nominate at least one game
• Nominate a game in each category
• Play a game you’ve nominated (You were going to play H&G anyways).
• Reviewing (or update your review) for a game you’ve nominated (Tell everyone why H&G should win).

For the second year in a row Valve is inviting the Steam Community to nominate games for the prestigious Steam Awards.

This year the number of categories has gone from eight to an impressive twelve different categories. And if none of these fits you – you just create your own award category. No matter what it would be fantastic if you would consider nominating Heroes & Generals for an award.

You just need to do it before november 28th @ 19:00 CET / 10am PST.



It is a simple matter to nominate Heroes & Generals for one or more Steam Awards – and you will even earn Steam Badges for doing so.

• Stop by our Steam Store page.
• Click the Steam Awards banner.
• Choose the category you think we should be nominated for.

The imaginative people at Steam have come up some really cool awards categories like the “Mom’s Spaghetti”- and “The World Is Grim Enough Let’s Just All Get Along” Award.
However, we really do like the “No Apologies” Award.
“This is the award you give to a game that you love unconditionally. Does the game have some faults? Maybe. Do other people not understand your love for it? Sure. But make no mistake. There is no guilt here. Only pleasure,” as Steam writes about the award.
This is a description that we believe that you players feel fits Heroes & Generals, just perfectly.

• Nominate at least one game
• Nominate a game in each category
• Play a game you’ve nominated (You were going to play H&G anyways).
• Reviewing (or update your review) for a game you’ve nominated (Tell everyone why H&G should win).

It has been a busy few weeks at the Reto-Moto headquarters. We had the Insider Summit, getting the 1.10 update ready while also releasing the Update 1.09.1[/url]. were we have made adjustments to the player level rewards and tweaked the xp earned by pilots – the details on the update can be found in the release blog post.



We have put the 1.10 Update on our prototype server so you can test it and provide feedback before the update goes live.
If you go to the prototype server you can have a look at the new helmet covers, the new vehicle paint jobs and the new weather settings. And you get to battle it out on an all new encounter map called ‘Culmar Hamlet’.
We have made a forum section dedicated to public test feedback, please go there to provide your input.


“What allows me to wake up every morning and come to the office with a smile on my face, is that now I understand that Heroes & Generals players are dedicated to their faction, to the war, but also to the game service as a whole and this is what makes RETO MOTO and Heroes & Generals stronger,” writes Reto Moto’s CEO Reto.JM in his second letter to the community.
You can read the letter from the CEO here.


Once again Reto.RedBjarne was joined on the Q&A & Why-Stream by Reto.Gargamel. We had a record 171 questions submitted by you guys this time around, and Reto.RedBjarne managed to get through approximately 30 of them.
Did you miss the Q&A & Why Twitch-stream? Not to worry you can still find it on Twitch and on our YouTube channel. If you want to submit a question for next time, you can do so here.
And remember to follow us on Twitch and tune in every Wednesday at 1500 CEST / 9am EDT, where we have a new Twitch-stream happening.

Also remember that community members Insider Marv 2.0 and Flint74  collects the answers given in the Q&A & Why-Stream in this forum tread.


Saturday 11th of November we had the very first Insider Summit at the Reto Moto headquarters in Copenhagen. The nine invited veteran players had an enjoyable time as did the developers from Reto Moto – it was a mutural benefitial exchange of viewpoints, ideas, thought and just plain fun.
We are working on a more extensive report detailing what was talked about at the Insider Summit that will be made available to all of you.
Meanwhile, we collected all our photos from the event in this blogpost. However, our favorite picture from the summit is the one below submitted by community member GermanSoldier.




Each time we do an update for Heroes & Generals we also do a video highligtinging the new content and features – these we call Highlight videos.
If you want some insights into how a Highlight video is made, you might want to follow our Lead Animator Reto.Colding on Twitch. Just before the release of the Update 1.09 he streamed while putting the Highlight video together. You can still watch both part one and part two on Twitch.



All Heroes & Generals players know that anything can happen on the frontline. And we really like it when you tell us about your more unusual experiences during combat – be it videos, gifs, screenshots or whatever.


One of these is a clip uploaded to the Heroes & Generals Subreddit by Porthgeidwad. And we really like the small story about showing mercy in combat.
However, you need to visit reddit to see it.



Ever dreamt of taking down a heavy fighter – no problem! All you need is a truck as you can see in the clip below recorded from the players point of view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtPsWYOgyX4&rel=0

And just to make sure you get to see just how awesome a kill this is, Reto.Christiano made sure to capture it from a different angle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtOPY0RK67w&rel=0

 

The Intelligence Bulletin is your quick brief about what is going on in and around Heroes & Generals. While the DevStreams and the forums are for the deep dives, this blog post series is an overall view – the Intelligence Bulletin will be published at regular intervals.

It has been a busy few weeks at the Reto-Moto headquarters. We had the Insider Summit, getting the 1.10 update ready while also releasing the Update 1.09.1[/url]. were we have made adjustments to the player level rewards and tweaked the xp earned by pilots – the details on the update can be found in the release blog post.



We have put the 1.10 Update on our prototype server so you can test it and provide feedback before the update goes live.
If you go to the prototype server you can have a look at the new helmet covers, the new vehicle paint jobs and the new weather settings. And you get to battle it out on an all new encounter map called ‘Culmar Hamlet’.
We have made a forum section dedicated to public test feedback, please go there to provide your input.


“What allows me to wake up every morning and come to the office with a smile on my face, is that now I understand that Heroes & Generals players are dedicated to their faction, to the war, but also to the game service as a whole and this is what makes RETO MOTO and Heroes & Generals stronger,” writes Reto Moto’s CEO Reto.JM in his second letter to the community.
You can read the letter from the CEO here.


Once again Reto.RedBjarne was joined on the Q&A & Why-Stream by Reto.Gargamel. We had a record 171 questions submitted by you guys this time around, and Reto.RedBjarne managed to get through approximately 30 of them.
Did you miss the Q&A & Why Twitch-stream? Not to worry you can still find it on Twitch and on our YouTube channel. If you want to submit a question for next time, you can do so here.
And remember to follow us on Twitch and tune in every Wednesday at 1500 CEST / 9am EDT, where we have a new Twitch-stream happening.

Also remember that community members Insider Marv 2.0 and Flint74  collects the answers given in the Q&A & Why-Stream in this forum tread.


Saturday 11th of November we had the very first Insider Summit at the Reto Moto headquarters in Copenhagen. The nine invited veteran players had an enjoyable time as did the developers from Reto Moto – it was a mutural benefitial exchange of viewpoints, ideas, thought and just plain fun.
We are working on a more extensive report detailing what was talked about at the Insider Summit that will be made available to all of you.
Meanwhile, we collected all our photos from the event in this blogpost. However, our favorite picture from the summit is the one below submitted by community member GermanSoldier.




Each time we do an update for Heroes & Generals we also do a video highligtinging the new content and features – these we call Highlight videos.
If you want some insights into how a Highlight video is made, you might want to follow our Lead Animator Reto.Colding on Twitch. Just before the release of the Update 1.09 he streamed while putting the Highlight video together. You can still watch both part one and part two on Twitch.



All Heroes & Generals players know that anything can happen on the frontline. And we really like it when you tell us about your more unusual experiences during combat – be it videos, gifs, screenshots or whatever.


One of these is a clip uploaded to the Heroes & Generals Subreddit by Porthgeidwad. And we really like the small story about showing mercy in combat.
However, you need to visit reddit to see it.



Ever dreamt of taking down a heavy fighter – no problem! All you need is a truck as you can see in the clip below recorded from the players point of view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtPsWYOgyX4&rel=0

And just to make sure you get to see just how awesome a kill this is, Reto.Christiano made sure to capture it from a different angle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtOPY0RK67w&rel=0

 

The Intelligence Bulletin is your quick brief about what is going on in and around Heroes & Generals. While the DevStreams and the forums are for the deep dives, this blog post series is an overall view – the Intelligence Bulletin will be published at regular intervals.