It would be the longest battle on the Western Front in the First World War, with hundreds of thousands killed in the fighting and within the city of Verdun itself. We produced a short video to commemorate the 103rd anniversary of Verdun’s namesake battle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz-VJd_HQ2Q&feature=youtu.be
Our last update added Turkish, Polish and Brazilian Portuguese language support. Japanese and Simplified Chinese will be supported within the next few days!


Here’s some screenshots from Tannenberg showing a few of the many languages supported in both games!

Work is also proceeding apace on the Verdun console update! Before that we plan to bring full controller support to the PC version of the game, release the UI update and add a new tutorial hint system. You can check out the roadmap for Verdun and Tannenberg for more.

Our Eastern Front shooter is available now, and all you Verdun owners have received a 25% loyalty discount voucher in their inventory - we’re looking forward to seeing you on the Eastern Front!
https://youtu.be/9RW4pfqNyeg
Today also brings an update for Verdun! Alongside bug fixes and bot improvements, there is language support for Turkish, Polish and Brazilian Portuguese added, and Japanese and Simplified Chinese will be following soon after release! In addition, the price of Verdun will be slightly reduced, so if you know friends who have been interested, now could be a good time for them to check it out! Read the full changelog in our hub.

The release of Tannenberg brings a new squad, map, weapons and… a secret event!
The new Bulgarian squad utilize a number of iconic weapons like the Mannlicher M90 carbine and the venerable Martini-Henry rifle. As a support squad, they can call in recon flyovers, and have access to a number of balanced loadout choices with rifles, pistols and grenades!



The Bulgarians will join fighting for the new map, which is set in the Dobrudja region between Bulgaria and Romania. With the strategically important waters of the Danube river visible in the distance, there is a central hilltop position to contest, with small fortifications scattered around the hillside leading down to a valley in the north.



After an Early Access period full of updates, useful feedback, and gameplay tweaks, every squad now has their own distinctive loadouts and abilities, and every map has a mix of strategic sectors, offering distinct advantages to the side strong enough to take control.

What’s more, we have announced a new special event for this Spring in Tannenberg. The details are still secret for now, but we’ll reveal more soon...

We have released an update with a wide range of changes and improvements. There are performance tweaks, bug fixes, map adjustments to Douaumont, an update to a new version of Unity, and more! Read the highlights below:

• Unity version updated to 2018.3.
  
• Various new UI updates, performance optimisations and fixes.
  
• Bots: Artillery call-in will now target a player that's clearly in sight (or was recently in sight) and with an extra random offset.
  
• Improved gasmask checking on spawn, which should resolve the 'spawning in gas' issues.
  
• Third person character now matches the first person vision more closely when a player goes prone. Reduces invisible prone issues when not deploying.
  
• Walking over a prone player will no longer slow you down
  
• Less chance of floating prone people.
  
• Some boundaries on Flanders shifted to include sections of trench.
  
• Fixed incorrect "Your NCO called in..." message for actions of other squads (now only display for your own squad call-ins).
  
• Improved gasmask checking on spawn. This should resolve the 'spawning in gas' issues.
  
• Fixed Tirailleurs not having Phosgene call-in.
  
• Network bandwidth optimisations.
  
  Douaumont adjustments
  
• Douaumont updated with: less entrances for Entente Powers, tweaks to trenches, walls and gun positions.
  
• Fixed bots getting stuck against the bunker in Douaumont.

As always, check out the full changelog on the forums.

https://youtu.be/fhSr9ZMtk6kSay hello to the Bulgarians!

The countdown has started - thirteen days to go until the release of Tannenberg on February 13th!

Cheers!

Welcome back to the first Frontline News of the new year! We’re going to take a look back on everything which happened over 2018, and then what’s coming in 2019. Let’s go!

We started the year of 2018 by merging the code bases for Verdun and Tannenberg. Although there were a few struggles at first, it set the stage for a big graphical upgrade for Verdun, shared progress for both games in the future, and ultimately the free expansion that would be released in December…




Last year's April Fools joke was taking a gentle dig at the Battle Royale craze. Battle Royal: Northern Front would have featured booty crates, jetpacks, and more wild stuff…



The focus was on performance through to September, with a ton of things fixed or tweaked. There were also more graphical updates bringing better distance shadows, lighting and first person view details! As well as general improvements, particular attention was paid to networking and the smooth movement of other players online.

Meanwhile the first new squad on the roadmap was released: the ANZACs! They form a squad of engineers with a flair for close combat.



In October we updated and improved many of the sound effects in the game, and added a new prestige system allowing veteran players to gain prestige ranks in exchange for resetting their level to one and starting over. Here’s a video showing off some of the new sounds that were added:
https://youtu.be/VyIZ2TCCwAQ
It was a special Armistice Day last year, being the 100th anniversary of the day the fighting ended. We posted short stories about 100 people who were killed in the fighting or otherwise died as a consequence of the war.



In December we released a free expansion for Verdun to round off the year with a big update. The Senegalese Tirailleurs and St. Mihiel Salient are classic new content, while bot support in a new 64 player Frontlines mode offers an entirely new way to play the game! The objectives might be the same in Frontlines 64, but doubling the number of soldiers fighting makes far more intense battles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnAjYsLD9NE



To top it all off, we ended the year with our now traditional Christmas Truce in Verdun. Thousands of people joined the truce map to throw snowballs, play football, sing carols, and send Christmas cards to their friends.

While preparing for the truce, we were also reminded that many soldiers propped up trees in their trenches to serve as Christmas trees. This tree propping inspired the people of M2H to donate a new forest of 2,500 trees via Dutch foundation Trees for All. Each player could plant one tree. We hoped they could match our 2,500 trees... and they blew us away with more than 6,000 trees planted in-game!



So that was 2018, now what do we have planned for the new year? We already announced that Tannenberg will be released on February 13th, 2019 - and that players could expect a surprise to arrive at launch... we're tight-lipped about details for now, but it's barely a month away now!

The trailer for that also teased the Bulgarians who will be arriving with the release. Bonus points to the keen eyed fans who got the movie reference! Check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyUjCk03a0Q&feature=youtu.be
We are also working on the user interface update for Verdun, bringing the new style of the revamped Tannenberg UI to our first game. You can already try out our WIP version via the opentesting branch on Steam. You can join opentesting branch by following these instructions:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=572388553
Check out how the new UI looks in Tannenberg, where a first version was released last year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfnOYoBHcK4
That’s it for now! Stay tuned for future Frontline News posts, and don’t forget that for more news, you can sign up for our newsletter!


Banitsa, a Bulgarian New Year’s Eve specialty!

It’s Christmas time, a momentous time in World War 1 as during the darkness and untold misery of war, our common humanity prevailed and both sides laid down their arms to celebrate. We celebrate this extraordinary event with an in-game Christmas Truce, as has become a tradition among Verdun players as well as earning the commemorative Christmas truce medal!



Players will be able to engage each other in snowball fights, football matches and exchanging christmas cards. What you might not know historically about this event, was that some German soldiers also propped up christmas trees among the trenches. For this year’s Christmas Truce Event, you’ll be able to plant your own Christmas tree among the trenches.

This tree propping inspired us this year to raise awareness for our planet earth. Deforestation and the resulting environmental damage has hurt our planet and climate significantly these past decades. Because of this, we at M2H want to donate a new forest of 2.500 trees via Trees for All, which will be planted in the Netherlands and Uganda in the fall of 2019. Trees for All is a Dutch foundation that endeavors to combat the deforestation and to compensate for CO2 emissions by planting trees as well as spreading awareness across the world.
As a counter challenge we hope you, the community, plant at least 2.500 trees in-game as a show of solidarity to our planet and help raise awareness for this cause. During the Christmas Truce, you can plant one tree among the trenches. As a token of our gratitude you’ll be added to the ‘Tree log’ credit list as well as receiving this year’s Christmas Truce medal!

More info on the 'tree planting' can be read here: http://truce.ww1gameseries.com/



Just like previous years we will also give away some WW1 Game Series swag. Everyone who sends postcards from the trenches to their loved ones via email or social media, has a chance on winning a Steam key for Tannenberg, peppermint can or thermos. We’ll announce the five winners in the first week of January.
Lastly; for those interested in Tannenberg, the game is offered at a 40% discount during the Steam Winter sale!

On behalf of the entire team, we wish you all a merry Christmas and an inspiring, peaceful New Year!

https://youtu.be/vnAjYsLD9NE
The Verdun expansion has arrived! This is a huge free update, featuring a new 64 player game mode, a new squad, a new map, new weapons, map voting and many other improvements and features. Let’s start digging into the new content...


Tirailleurs Sénégalese pose with their distinctive Mle 1907 Berthier rifles.

France is reinforced by Tirailleurs Sénégalese and four new weapons - these capable colonial troops bring dedication and a strong offensive spirit to the Western Front. The weapons included are machetes for close quarters assaults, Mle 1907 rifles, plus OF1 and petard grenades.


A tirailleur prepares a Petard Grenade.


German soldiers in action.

Located within close vicinity of the German border in 1914, this wooded area was targeted in September of 1914 by German attacks in an attempt to cut off the city of Verdun from supplies and support to the south. During this assault, commencing from the Woevre plains to the north, the Germans would advance as far as the city of St. Mihiel on the Meuse river and to the Bois-Le-Pretre ('Priesterwald' in German) on the banks of the Moselle river further east, thus establishing a large intrusion into French lines for years to come. Several attempts were made by French forces to reclaim the formed salient, these were extremely costly. Most notably were the mine battles at Les Eparges in 1915. Eventually St. Mihiel Salient would witness the first major American offensive of the war in September of 1918. It was the first and only offensive of the war made solely by American infantry. Almost 1500 aircraft supported the attack, with 40% of them flown by US pilots. The Americans caught German forces as they were retreating, and a fierce initial artillery barrage followed by aggressive advances led to a significant Allied victory.


A battle on St. Mihiel map.

In Verdun, the St. Mihiel map is a battlefield covered with forest, trenches, sandbagged positions, and dirt mounds. Many trees have been destroyed by shellfire, but others still stand. In some areas, the stumps and trunks will be the best source of cover, while in other places there are well built trench lines.


A defensive position in the forest trenches.

With St. Mihiel we wanted to capture a completely wooden area that is devastated, unlike our other maps which tend to involve large meadows or open elements. As a starting point we took the location of the bois-le-pretre and actual trench maps from that area to base the map on, it has a gentle slope to it as the setting is in the hills above the Moselle river - if you peek through the trees you might see the valley below.
In terms of gameplay we wanted to offer many organic points of exit from trenches through craters and gentle slopes such as is the case on Vosges and Argonne, combined with forward saps to concentrate the fights on, which is also a popular feature on the existing maps. As you get more into the rear of the map you will see the density of vegetation increase to help you orient yourself. Another prominent feature is the landmark of the Croix-des-Carmes (The “Carmelite” wooden cross) in the center of the map, which switched hands during the battles that raged in 1914 and 1915.


US troops in the attack.


Epic 64 player battle.

There will be 64 players battling it out for control of the trenches in the new Frontlines game mode. These epic battles include bot support to guarantee large scale action. As the servers fill, bots will leave until all 64 slots are player filled. Like in Tannenberg, we will continue optimizing the bots.

The core gameplay is the same as the Frontlines mode, but tactics will change with more soldiers on the battlefield. There are some adjustments to call-in cooldowns as more NCOs will be present, less grenades are available, a few map changes as well as other tweaks to fit the larger number of players. The core remains the same though - you still win by capturing enemy trenches and defending your own.


To accommodate the 64 player game mode we extended some of the narrow sectors in both Argonne and Artois. Here a screenshot of U.S Doughboys firing from an extra shell-hole created in the 2nd entente line.


Some changes were made to the extreme lines in Artois.

The existing Frontlines mode will not change in it’s essence. No bots will be added to this mode. The only changes you can expect here are a new Spawn and Overview map (more on this later) and the name change: Frontlines (32 players). Bots in the Frontlines Private mode can be set to your preference with the command /setfillbots.

The new Tannenberg UI has been progressing nicely, and we have the first version of the new Verdun UI ready for testing! If you want to try the new UI, you can use the ‘opentesting’ beta. This is available via Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=572388553
You can switch back to the regular stable version of the game at any time by going to the beta menu and selecting ‘NONE’.


The new UI currently on the opentesting branch.

We added a Spawn and Overview map to each game mode. You can now choose to deploy in a friendly or sector spawn point via the Spawn map. Another new feature is the ‘Overview map’ where you can regain your bearings by pressing ‘M’ - this will enlarge the mini-map. Battles will become more insightful, these maps will give especially new players a better understanding of the situation.


Enhanced awareness of the flow of battle: you can now see where your squad is and your spawn.


The spawn map also animates whenever a sector is captured and changes the view angle based on your faction.

By community request we now have a Map Voting system in place. After a match end you can now influence where to fight next. The results will be shown after everyone voted to make sure no majority influence occurs.


Example of a map vote.

There is much more in the expansion: barbed wire will no longer kill you - although it will still make you a sitting duck if you get caught up in it -, jumpshooting has been removed and you now get immediate feedback as well as a score penalty for friendly fire.

Read the full changelog to see all the changes.

We’d also like to take a moment to give our thanks to your support over the years. We hope that this expansion shows that Verdun hasn’t been forgotten even with the full release of Tannenberg coming up.

By request, there is a Supporter Edition now available for Verdun - like the Tannenberg one, it features the soundtrack, a pack of Verdun artwork, characters, and weapon renders, a Supporter Star, and bonus career points for new players to unlock more weapons and loadouts at the start.

Finally… ho ho ho, Christmas is on the way! As in the past, we expect there may be a ceasefire in parts of the front…

There is a big update planned for Verdun later this year - regular readers of the Frontline News likely have a good idea what will be featured, but we have some new details to release today!

Our main goals with this update are to make the game more accessible to new players, and to make sure that people can enjoy the game at any time of the day, in all parts of the world on PC and console! We hope this will also lead to players returning more often, since the game will be playable at all times.

Our other goal is to enhance the World War One atmosphere within the game - this is central to the whole vision behind the WW1 Game Series. While compromises will always need to be made for playability, there is plenty of scope for changes to boost player immersion.

We will release an open testing version of the new UI for the Winter Update. Those of you who also play Tannenberg will already have an impression of what to expect here! We will continue to refine and improve the UI in the Tannenberg Early Access, and once we’ve got all the rough edges smoothed off we will release it for all Verdun players. Here’s a mockup of the squad selection menu for Verdun in the new UI:



Part of the user interface we haven’t changed yet in Tannenberg is the games browser - but we have an update planned. It will no longer be necessary to set a password for a private game, it will be easier to find private matches, and there will be improvements to the browser for games of all types. This will be part of the new UI when it is released in Verdun.

Much has been said about the bots - some people are looking forward to their introduction - especially in quieter areas of the world - while others have concerns. We can announce that bots will be coming to Verdun in a new Frontlines game mode - so nobody will be forced to play with bots. If you like your Verdun experience as it is, you can keep on playing in the current Frontlines mode.


A screenshot of 64 players in action!

The new Frontlines mode variant will feature more than just bots - it will also increase the player count to 64! This will intensify the WW1 ambience and create more epic battles which we think will prove popular with the part of the community who have shown interest in larger scale fights. Naturally as more players join a game, bots will leave, so busy servers will see 32v32 player battles! There will also be gameplay tweaks to factors like call-in cooldowns and grenade loadouts to fit the larger number of squads fighting.The bots will also be available for private matches, where players will be able to adjust the skill of the bots and bot numbers to their satisfaction.

The new 64 player Frontlines mode will provide a slightly more gentle introduction to the game (it’s still trench warfare after all), giving new players some space as part of a larger team to learn the basics of movement, weapons handling, squad loadouts, objectives, and how to navigate the maps. We hope that having a game mode with bots will encourage people to return to the game more often, since they will always be able to play.

There will also be a new spawning UI in the new Frontlines game mode, with an overview map will provide a good indication of where you can spawn, where the enemy are coming from or currently defending, and generally help orient people as they spawn in. It will also be implemented in the current Frontlines. We are aiming to implement this in the current open testing UI for the Winter Update.


A WIP gif of the upcoming spawn UI.

One of our guiding principles for each game in the WW1 Game Series is to deliver a historical game capturing some of the WW1 atmosphere, including the difficult situations soldiers would encounter where they had to make tactical decisions. Although we know some players have gotten used to it, jumpshooting does not fit in this vision. We have struggled to take a clear position here as we wanted to find a solution which could keep all players happy, yet from a design perspective it just doesn’t fit the game we want to make, or the ethos of the series.

Therefore it is not something we will continue to support. The removal of jumpshooting is primarily related to the atmosphere in the game: it looks ridiculous. This is also why we didn’t implement it in Tannenberg.

The update will also see a change to how barbed wire works. We’ve seen many new players struggle (literally) with barbed wire. In short, it will no longer kill you. New wire will be an obstacle that can reduce your health and stamina while limiting your movement speed, making you a sitting duck if you get caught up for too long, but it won’t kill you.

There will be several other features as part of the update - for instance, players will be able to vote for the next map once a battle ends! A score penalty for shooting your own team will also be added, along with some adjustments to balance of call-ins.

As for new content, a second squad and a map are on the roadmap, but what squad, and where will the map be based? Here is the first teaser for the next new map...



And the squad? That’s something we’re going to keep under wraps for now - we’ve got to keep some air of mystery around the update! Expect more sneak peeks in these upcoming weeks!

We know we haven’t been as quick to comment on certain topics as we normally are. There were some tough calls to make, so we wanted to take some extra time to review your given feedback carefully and playtest certain changes ourselves.

That’s all for now. We understand that some might be shocked, others will be excited. We ask you all to stay civil to each other and to have some patience to wait and experience the changes.