Hi everyone, here we are with some new stuff we want to show you, and also we have an announcement to make. Things are getting closer and closer to being finished and the excitement is going up slowly but surely.

First, let’s have a look at a specific piece of weaponry: the Nebelwerfer 41. Let’s start with a bit of history.
“Nebelwerfer” is the generic German name for this type of weapon. Some sources state that the name was given to it because it’s rockets created dense smoke trails that could be seen for miles. This is not true; it’s because of the original (main) task of laying smoke screens that these specialist units had. In the campaign in France for instance, successful Nebelwerfer smokescreens blinded enemy artillery observers on several occasions when German troops were crossing rivers or attacking sections of the Maginot Line.

Before 1941, the “Werfertruppe” had two models of the 10 cm Nebelwerfer at their disposal (the 35 and the 40). The collection was expanded by a new model in the summer of 1941, which was not a 10cm but a 15cm “Werfer”, which was named Nebelwerfer 41 in accordance with the then current naming convention in the German army.
It was intended for firing 2 types of rockets; smoke and HE. Eventually, the units were used almost exclusively to fire HE rockets.
There were 5 regiments of rocket artillery when operation Barbarossa started, “Werferregiment” 51, 52, 53 and 54 and the “Werfer- Lehr- Regiment”. These served in close support, right at the front line. They provided a dense bombardment and were quite effective; German army commanders liked the weapon very much. Notable battles where the Nebelwerfer played a role were the battle at the Stalin line and the Perekop isthmus, both in 1941. Its characteristic loud noise made British & American soldiers call it “Moaning Minnie” when they opposed them in Africa and Italy.
The Nebelwerfer 41 stayed in production until the war’s end.




In Gates of Hell we will have a completely new Nebelwerfer 41 for you.
What’s new about this one?
Well, as you know by now, the rockets used for this weapon left dense smoke trails that could be seen far beyond the normal line of sight. This will also be true in GoH.
Also, it will feature a support at the front to stabilize the Werfer before it can be fired.
It’s crew will duck & cover their ears when the weapon is being fired, to avoid going deaf with the astonishingly loud noise.

This is how it looks (by the way, everything you see in our blogs and on facebook & VK is work in progress):


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Note: WiP alert! The flame effects and the animations are due to GIF limitations and do not represent the actual in- game effects.

For historically correct game design purposes we researched how the rockets (Wurfgranate 41) were designed and manufactured.
Two features of this design are different compared to the soviet rocket equivalent - the Katyusha’s M-13. Having found that stabilization fins were no option, the rockets were designed with tilted nozzles that made the rocket spin as it travelled, offering gyroscopic stability, similar to the rifling in gun barrels. Another difference is that the explosive was at the back of the (31,8 Kg/ 70 Lb.) rocket, whereas Soviet rockets had the explosive load at the front.
The result was that the Nebelwerfer rocket was more accurate and had a more effective shockwave. However, the BM-13 fired way more rockets (16 vs. 6) per salvo.


One remark about development balance; what we see here is a German piece of artillery. But this rocket science series of blogs is not over yet! Our Studebaker-mounted Katyusha rocket systems are moving to texturing stage. We plan to have them suited up for the next rocket artillery update.
Having said that, you can see we are busy putting these rocket launchers in the game. So how can we be sure that will they work? By testing, of course.


We are gearing up for the beta and so we need testers.
Since we are a small studio, it would be very unwise to take hundreds of testers on board; we would simply be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of feedback.
We think the beta can be successful if we have a very strict selection of about 15 testers.
Probably the most important asset for a tester is the ability to explain issues to the devs, and our internal communications are always in English. We’re really sorry for those who come from many countries and who do not speak English, but we must prioritise efficiency at work.

Overall, this is what we look for in our beta testers:

• You speak English
  
• You are at least 18 years old
  
• You will be available for testing at least 5 hours per week
  
• You have a Steam account
  
• You are able to attend discord meetings at Central European times
  (This does not mean you have to live in the CET zone)
  
• You are prepared to sign a non- disclosure agreement prior to the test

We kindly request that if you can not comply with all the above, you do not apply.
If you can tick the boxes, go to the application page on our website: http://barbed-wire.eu/beta-tester/

Well, that’s all for now. We hope you like the fact that we are getting closer to a releasable game & we hope you like what you see! If you do, please let us know. Meanwhile, we will brace ourselves for the beta and go back to work. If you have any suggestions to make, tell us in the Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/400750/discussions/

• The Nebelwerfer 41 was of larger calibre than the weapon it succeeded, but it was much cheaper to build: they were 3350 Rm. each.
  
• Nebelwerfer production peaked in 1944, with 2336 new units being built. When production ended, 5769 had been built.
  
• Range for the Nebelwerfer could be set anywhere between 200m and 6900m

Hi everyone, it’s time for an update and here we are.

There are lots of things being developed in parallel, some things more interesting to write about than others; so we picked something that will be available in early access, and describe how we made it and what it will look like.

The struggle at the Vistula spit happened right at the end of the war, after a campaign that had seen unbelievably bitter fighting under extreme conditions, with staggering loss of life on both sides.

The Vistula spit and the Curonian spit are sandbank formations that are emblematic for the geography of the Baltic coast between Gdańsk (Danzig) and Klaipėda (Memel). As German units became cut off from the rest of the German Army (which was retreating towards the Oder during the Soviet offensive of january 1945) two pockets of resistance emerged around Königsberg (Kaliningrad) to the east and Danzig to the West, only linked by the Vistula spit after Soviet troops reached the Vistula lagoon at Heiligenbeil.

The situation became similar to the Courland pocket further east: the bulk of the Red Army was focused on breaking the Oder-Line and reaching Berlin, while efforts were made to contain and slowly destroy the German pockets. For the Germans “holding at all cost” had become the usual official mantra, and the evacuation by sea of civilians, wounded and valuable equipment didn’t mean the position would be abandoned. The evacuations took place mostly by ship and were supported by the Kriegsmarine. Many civilians and soldiers were evacuated in the extreme cold, and evacuations continued during spring. After the major ports of Königsberg and Danzig had been lost the only real alternatives for evacuation by ship were the small ports of Pillau and Hela.


Civilians and soldiers line up to be evacuated in Pillau, 1945.

A tank ditch was dug across the peninsula north of Pillau to defend the city. What seem to be the remains of the defensive line can still be seen today; copy/ paste the coordinates (54.719827, 19.945084) into google maps to find it. The Lochstädt (Lochstedt) castle was the pivotal defense point of the German defenses north of Pillau in april 1945, it was defended by guns of the 18. Flak-Division and fell after heavy fighting on the 23rd of april. Pillau itself fell on the 25th of april.


Part of a German situation map, indicating Pillau had a “fortress command”

After the fall of Pillau, remnants of the German 4th Army - various surviving units and civilians - fled across the Pillau Strait.
Soviet troops of the 11th Guards Army pushed hard to pursue the fleeing Germans, harassing them with aircraft and building a pontoon to cross the strait. At the same time soviet troops used boats to land on both sides of the Spit to cut off retreating German troops. The main landing took place on the 27th April and was supposed to be a synchronized attack on both sides of the Spit, but the timing was off and Germans troops managed to push the Soviet troops back.

German infantry held blocking positions along the Spit, the northernmost part held by the 28. Jäger Division made up of remnants of the LV. Army Corps, while the remnants of the 5th Panzer Division and the “Grossdeutschland” Panzer Division served as mobile counterattack forces with the very few vehicles that were still operational.
Wounded soldiers, civilians from Pomerania and East Prussia and all sort of support units were now stuck on the Spit. The fighting continued until the 8th of May, the day the German troops on the Spit surrendered (2. Army on the nearby Hel-Peninsula surrendered only the next day).

The mission in Gates of Hell will be set in the aftermath of the fall of Pillau, during the gruelling last days of the war in Europe. Desperate German units trying to hold on and Soviet troops determined to end the war once and for all clash in the spring weather of 1945.


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The geography of the area is unique and very different from the plains, cities and snowy battlefields of the Soviet Union. Instead the spit is heavily forested, giving great cover for infantry to hide from the ever watchful eyes of the Soviet air force. And of course sand, a lot of it (it’s coarse and rough and irritating obviously). This interesting mix of terrain is why we chose to look at this battle for Gates of Hell.

The mission we’re designing for the map will rely on these geographical features and the context of the last days of the war unfolding to provide an engaging fight for the player. The map can be roughly described as being composed of three distinctive areas that blend into each other: the shore on the baltic sea, the forest, and the dunes on the vistula lagoon shore.


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The baltic shoreline is thin and offers little cover. An improvised road follows the shoreline: the only north-south road on the spit was quickly congested by the military traffic and especially civilians but also military units used the sandy shore as an alternative road. This worked well during the winter when the sand was firm from the cold but when spring came around the loose sand became the last resting place for more than one German vehicle.


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Most of the spit is covered with pine forest. The sandy and mossy ground offers little resistance to tracks and so the only road going through the forest was of strategic importance. The almost straight road offers little cover, so beware if you want to rush your tank down that road, anti-tank crews and panzerfausts are lurking in the forest!


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In the forest itself, German troops are seeking refuge from the constant Soviet air presence; here they can fortify. For Soviet soldiers it will be no simple task to drive them out, it will be a bloody forest fight.


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Then the forest and the dunes on the eastern side of the spit start to blend. Sand and greenery mix and create a playground for infantry ambushes. Flanking attacks to outmaneuver the fortified forest positions will have to come through here.


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The dunes are open terrain, suited for long range fighting. Here tanks can deploy all their firepower, although the bumpy, sandy terrain doesn't make for an easy ride. The wavy dunes also provide great cover for sneaky infantry attacks. But beware, from above the mighty Soviet air force is always watching - and who knows what danger might come sailing in from the lagoon?

Did you know?
• Before and after the surrender, food was in short supply. Even though potatoes were available, these were not handed out immediately because they were needed for planting new crops.
  
• In the last weeks of the war, German light FLAK units were almost exclusively used in ground battles, for which they had to conserve ammunition; with the Luftwaffe already incapacitated, the VVS (Soviet air force) not only had complete mastery of the air, but the FLAK also stopped shooting at its aircraft.
  
• The side streets of Pillau were littered with big piles of equipment in those last weeks. Soldiers were told to leave behind their guns, gas mask drums etc. to save space on the evacuating ships.
  
• The Teutonic Order built the castle at Lochstädt. You can still visit the ruins of the castle today. In Pillau itself you can find a war museum as well.
  
• We post regular WiP screenshots on Facebook:
  https://www.facebook.com/gatesofhellgame/

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Hi everyone, here we are with a development update! The last update was quite general; this time we want to present something really specific. In fact, what we want to show you is a historical scenario we’ve been working on: the battle of Tikhvin.


In October 1941, the defenses of Leningrad appear to be impenetrable to the German attackers. Instead of attacking frontally, German high command decides to concentrate its efforts against the city’s supply lines. The focal point is the railway line linking Leningrad to the eastern regions supplying the Road of Life, and the offensive will target it’s largest railway node: the town of Tikhvin. After a devastating aerial bombardment, disabling most of the infrastructure, the German forces advance on the Volkhov sector to conquer the town and cut the supply line to Leningrad.

When the Germans reach the outskirts of the town on the 8th of November a blinding snowstorm starts, slowing the attackers and concealing the enemy positions. The few Soviet guns still present in the area fire at the panzers at point blank range, and the Germans have a hard time breaking through the Soviet lines. The fighting stops when Soviet troops retreat. Afterwards, Soviet High Command organises a counter offensive with fresh reinforcements and latest version T-34s.

Because this battle was unique at the time, we felt it deserves a place in Gates of Hell. For this scenario we even built a very special vehicle; completely historical of course.




The mission starts after the German attack on Tikhvin. Soviet aero sleds are commanded to recon the area in preparation for the Soviet counterattack. The Germans are establishing logistics and defenses of their own, which makes the perfect scene for sabotage and observation operations.


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The player [soviet] will have to fight his way through the German rear and jeopardise the supply columns and other vital strategic assets. There is room for plenty of secondary tactics to be employed, from sabotaging communication lines to denying the enemy a chance to call for reinforcements and preventing partisan executions. We have modelled the logistics and communication setups as accurately as possible.


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The player will have to micro-control his small squad and keep key members alive - resembling the classic gameplay of the original games of the series. Despite the numerical inferiority, two factors are strongly in favor of the player: the element of surprise and the crucial use of NKL-26s. While the Germans struggle to cross the deep snow, your aerosleds will be speeding on the surface, and the Germans won’t know what hit them.
With this setup, we want to bring something new to the table and ensure each mission is unique and has something special and new.


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The Soviets eventually took back the town on December 8th, making Tikhvin the first place where a Soviet counteroffensive actually repelled the Germans. In doing so, they reopened the supply line to Leningrad, albeit for a very short period of time. The Leningrad blockade was one of the most cruel events of WWII. Through our game, we wish to pay tribute to the soldiers and civilians who endured the brutal struggle. In the future we plan to develop new scenarios depicting the ‘Road of Life’ and other key events where the Soviets faced Army Group North.


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That’s the battle of Tikhvin for now. In the background we are working on a lot more scenarios such as Mount Elbrus (check the screenshots on Facebook and VK) and the battle of Tula (around Kondrovo), and we will make sure there is a good score of scenarios when we announce the EA later this year.
Do you like what you see? Let us know!

Did you know?

• A few days after the Germans captured Tikhvin, the temperature fell off to -40°c. At this temperature, any contact with metallic objects immediately burns the skin. Because of this, both armies were forced to halt operations as men were dying of cold and most equipment was frozen.
  
• From the end of 1941 to February 1942 the only food available in Leningrad was a ration of 125 grams of bread per day, which contained more than 50% sawdust and other inedible materials.
  
• In 1942, the Soviet army tried to break the Leningrad siege for the third time. The plan was called the Sinyavino Offensive and for the first time involved major forces. The Germans had also been preparing an offensive in the same month and the same region, called Operation Nordlicht (Northern Light). They were both unaware of the enemy’s plans. This offensive also saw the first involvement of Tiger tanks, although technical failures and swampy terrain prevented them from actively taking part in the fights.

Hello everybody, today's news is one of our job ads, which we wanted to share with you! Please spread it to those who might be interested! Our next content dev blog will follow shortly in the next 2 weeks! See you in the comments!

LOCATION: REMOTE WORK
LEVEL: EXPERIENCED
DEPARTMENT: LEVEL DESIGN
PAYMENT: AFTER RELEASE

As a Level Designer at BWS, you are responsible for providing immersive, high quality maps:

• You will recreate the battlefields of WWII with stunning historical accuracy and immersion, based on research and verified sources, including correct map sizes/scales, extracting hightmaps and being able to pinpoint locations of different objects/environments such as houses, landscape elements, flora, etc. While said work is planned, you will also take care of producing project documents to note down important information before you go hands-on.
  
• You will be coordinating your work with the mapping team as well as your team lead to increase your skills, to develop new mapping techniques and to share innovative ideas with everybody, in a continued ongoing process.
  
• You will regularly developing test areas in the GEM editor to find the best mapping and design techniques before you adapt the result into the final project.
  
• The process of creation of a map is long: You will be an active member of our team, driven by passion and willing to run the required miles to fulfill our self set targets and standards.

• You are skilled in level design and you understand basic art principles.
  
• You got solid experiences with the GEM Editor and you are able to work with all its tools (highmapping, colour tool, polygon edit etc.).
  
• You are committed to learn and use Discord (communication means), Git (version controlling & every mapper can see everybody's work) and Trello (organisation).
  
• You are open minded (also for feedback/critics), willing to work in an international team.
  
• You are fluent in english so you are able to communicate with us.

We are an international, innovative and homegrown team born out of dedicated enthusiasts - our target? We strive to build an RTS that unlike all others, puts both historical value and atmosphere upfront to deliver a product that both an immersive game and a loyal portrayal of WWII. Thus, we are looking for people who share our passion. We grew up watching the classic war films, reading the books and travelling to the places where modern history was forever shaped. Is this your cup of tea? Then please get in touch with us now, right here.

Note: When sending us your application, please make sure to attach your CV and references from your mentioned work, as pictures or Steam Workshop/Youtube Links. (References are required to evaluate your skills in level design).

We look forward to receive your application!

Hello everyone!

We have been very busy in the past weeks, working in all kinds of directions. For instance, we were setting up parts of the process to facilitate future beta testing. We also did some testing of our own. But now it’s time for a development update!
This dev blog is more about general game updates. Of course we want to show you some nice stuff we’ve been working on. Here is a collection of screenshots with the developer’s notes.
Have a good look, we hope you like them!



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If you take a close look, you can see this particular King Tiger has been in a fight. Two shots from T-34/85’s have scarred the upper glacis plate and one has bounced off the (Pre- production type) turret. It’s gun has been fired a number of times, blackening the barrel around the muzzle brake with burnt gunpowder. It also shows white stripes around the barrel, indicating that this tank has destroyed 8 enemy tanks. The screenie was taken “somewhere in Western Poland”. Note that the trees, bushes and grass are all new.



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We showed you a number of things from the Wintergewitter scenario in devblog #66. Here’s another scene from that scenario; note that the Panzer III has side skirts (and rather muddy ones). The tracks on the Panzer III were easily damaged - even by Soviet AT rifles - making this model one of the first German tanks to receive “Schürzen” for that reason.



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As you can see this Tiger is firing its gun. The flames, like they would in real life, go sideways thanks to the muzzle brake. At the front it’s mostly smoke. The spare track sections on the turret add armor protection in-game, but they can be shot off as well. Note the additional camouflage, mostly attached to the extra bits of track.



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This tank was a nasty surprise to the Germans in 1941. Its extremely heavy armor made it almost impenetrable, at least from the front, for most German AT guns. Some accounts will tell you that a handful of KV tanks could stop a large group of Panzers. In august 1941, a company commander, lieutenant Kolobanov, reported that his company destroyed 42 enemy tanks in 1 day, with just 5 KV tanks. Note that this screenshot clearly shows the infantry riding along, something the KV-1 offers plenty of room for. Also note the bolted armor on the turret.

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Here’s another angle; a maximum of 7 infantry can ride along.



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Here’s the Soviet ROKS flamethrower unit. As you see, the flames are one step up, and so is the coding behind it. It will be much harder to burn yourself with the new algorithms, which is something that had always been a nasty problem with flamethrowers in the game engine, and “farshooting” exploits in multiplayer are not possible any more. Its accuracy is also different; your aim will need to be more precise than before. Also note the volume of smoke.

Did you know?

• The King Tiger from the tank museum in Saumur, France has a non- historical paint scheme according to some people, so we don’t use its color scheme; however, we will use its sound in-game, as it is the only running example in the world.
  
• You can find more on our Facebook and VK pages. Like & follow us so you are sure to miss nothing, for instance when we open applications for our beta this summer!

Beta testing (15-20 testers) will be open for applications this summer (summer in Europe) and we are still on schedule to have EA in 2018.

That’s all for now. Do you like what you see? Let us know!

Hi everyone, here we are with the next update!
We have some new stuff we want to show you and get your opinion on.

This time it’s all about human models & uniforms. These go together because we want to show you stuff that is completed; not just human models and not just uniforms but both.


As always, we research before we design. In case of the Gates of Hell uniforms, a vast amount of effort went into consulting many different sources such as “Uniforms and insignia of Red Army 1918-1958 (Kharitonov O. V.), “Manual on fitting, assembly... of the marsh equipment of Red Army” (1941), orders of introduction of new items of equipment along the years spanning the war and many others. This was done by Artyom Kazarez who is our in- house historian for this subject.


This photo, said to have been taken in Stalingrad, shows off some accessories nicely (e.g. PPSH drum pouch, spade, shoes with puttee’s), but we can’t trust the colors because they may have been added later.

A number of Soviet uniforms are uniquely shaped. On some, the jacket does not open in the middle from the belt down; the reason for this being unclear. Does anyone of you know?
Anyway, sometimes uniforms seem to have been designed for anywhere but the battlefield. Some Soviet soldiers wore overalls; while these kept out dust and dirt, they must have been a total nuisance in the latrine.



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We will post more screenshots of the soviet models on Facebook in the coming days

As you can (maybe) see, there is much more detail modelled into these than you will find in most games.
The soldier on the close-up belongs to a cadre division of the Red Army from pre-war service. He is fully equipped with Y-straps, bread bag and marsh boots. You may note he is sub-machinegunner, so he has two PPSH drum pouches.
Sadly the image of a Soviet soldier in full gear with all equipment, backpack, marsh boots, etc was only a common sight in 1941. Big losses endured in the first months of war lead to tremendous losses of equipment. So during the Battle of Moscow, the standard soldier’s uniform and gear had many differences, and often most of the equipment was poorer than before. E.g: most bread bags and a substantial amount of Y-straps were lost in the summer & autumn of 1941.
This will be shown in the game - in 1942, soldiers will have other arrangements of equipment.

The more polygons you use in the design process, the better your models look, but a lot of time needs to be spent in optimising the mesh for performance reasons.
The “flipside” is - perhaps obviously - the amount of time it takes to finish and texture them all correctly. This is possibly the main reason why we are not developing at a break- neck pace. We use the “highpoly” method for human modelling, creating a model that contains millions of polygons, accurately simulating different cloth materials and down to the very moles on the soldiers’ skin. Later, the sculpture is broken down to just a couple of thousand polygons, something that the game can handle. The wrinkles of cloth and other tiny details that were once contained in the million-polygon mesh are transferred to the texture, giving a natural appearance to all details.

After the modelling is done we need to add something else to get a sense of realism: we should have a wide cross- section of all the different peoples that made the Soviet army a multicultural place by any standard. We have designed our 3D soldier models to represent just that. Note that the faces of the 3D models here only show a fraction of the total number of different faces, and we have collections of them for different nations.


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Besides that, we need to add texture variations that make the uniforms recognizable. Our historical advisors have made a specification catalogue to track the different uniforms that we will make, and all the separate pieces that conform it. We will be producing approximately 30 uniforms per nation for Early Access, which is not only a record for any MoW game, but perhaps for any RTS out there - we would have to check!
All in all we hope you can see that we are not only progressing but always choosing for ways that add to the quality. Do you like the result?


Quality, realism and historical correctness take time to integrate. Since all our devs are developing the game in their spare time, it is only logical that the game is not yet finished; however, we are progressing nicely toward release. At the time we write this, a huge volume of work is already finished and our goal for EA this year is realistic.
In one of our summer dev blogs we will announce the start of beta testing, the logical next step in any game development cycle. Make sure you keep following us and, when the time comes, subscribe as a tester. We are currently setting up the process for it. By the way, beta testers will receive a game key from us; they will not need to buy the game when it’s released.
Would you be interested to be among the first that see these uniforms and models in- game?

• Some Soviet items were looted off Soviet soldiers by default; the felted boot, for instance, was much better for cold conditions because it lacked the cold- conducting iron nails the German soldiers had in their boot soles.
  
• The “winter lesson” the Wehrmacht had to learn in 1941 was the absolute necessity to wear the uniform trousers over their boots to prevent snow from gathering in them. This could mean the difference between keeping or losing a foot.
  
• Many Soviet soldiers on war-photos have one interesting peculiarity: they have the lone belt without pouches, the foxhole spade or other items. It’s usually so, because many photos were staged and not taken in battle conditions. On the other hand, there’s many photos of soldiers in full gear as well.
  
• Every soldier should have a gas mask bag with it’s corresponding gas mask. It’s interesting to note that from the beginning of the war many soldiers dropped their gasmask and used the former bag for carrying other items - ammo, food, tobacco, etc. Below is a war-time picture showing the usual cargo of a gas mask bag in 1942.

Welcome everybody! It's time for a new dev blog (sorry for the week’s delay but we wanted to adjust some last things to deliver you better quality) and as promised, we want to tell you about sounds (voices) of soldiers in GoH and show you some examples of our work. This dev blog will be (beside some recordings) more text like, so please feel free to comment and rate our work below this blog (or vote a thumbs up/down) so we can evaluate your reactions and improve! Let's start!



Since our BWS dev team has members from all over the world, we noticed that voices of soldiers or humans in most games often were very childish or stereotyped, which here and there brought a “-_-” to our faces, especially if you are a native speaker of whatever language, taking the historical background and realism into account.

Hence, to change this for our game and to bring realism to a higher level within our capacities, we decided to make completely new recordings of the voices for the German and Russian soldiers. Our target is to innovate and refresh all voices to a point where we create a new atmosphere and intense immersion on the battlefield!

To realize good productions, we required good professional equipment and people which are motivated and skilled in doing this job - both of this aspects are very hard to find if you have no budget to pay a third party provider. Even Triple A games often have some problems with this. Fortunately, one of our staff members has an excellent network which helped us to have a large German voice acting team with excellent voice characteristics, acting skills and motivation to do this job.

As a first step, our voice team had to prepare the voice room (which is a little music rehearsal room) to make sure our recordings are not disturbed by feedback, which often is the case when edges or flat areas or objects are near the speaker (they also used a lot of improvised and self made material to make sure that this can be guaranteed). As a next step, the team built up all of the equipment required (microphone, monitors etc.) to do some tests afterwards and to make sure about that everything is adjusted and running fine for final recording. Before the first voices were recorded, our actors practices the specific sentences while trying different emotions within this process to make sure that our demands were met.



Our German voice team is about 16 passionate actors (among them a leader of a theater group, students of a film academy, a sound technician, musicians, a soldier and assistants) who work together. Their average age is ca. 28 years and an interesting fact is that most of them are gamers, so they know about good and bad (German) voice examples from different games and they were able to anticipate what must be done differently to make it better than anything that came before this. Before they started the whole project, they fulfilled some planning processes which included researching work to create texts and sentences that possibly could be heard in battles. They focused on the way of speaking in general, WWII era German words used, discussing all this and a lot more. A very abstract example of this work was looking at old WWII videos, but also at modern war situations, which we analysed to find out how soldiers would talk or scream when being in combat. As one of many examples, we were looking at this: Michael Wittmann interview (used to find out how he speaks and what words he used when doing that):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFtFfHGmgJA
Since one of our team members was in the German army, we also consulted him when creating visions, concepts and plans for the voices.
While our voice actors were acting, they sometimes were looking at WWII/war media to soak up the impressions and the atmosphere to be able to perform in the most realistic or plausible way possible. When doing this, the most important aspect always was and is about being authentic, in which we think we succeeded - BUT, enough said now, let's hear into some samples!

https://youtu.be/wr9BWx_J-mo
(If you don't speak German/Russian and you would like us to translate one part of the lines, post the time in the comment section and we will help you out!)

Have you ever tried voice acting? It’s really not as simple as it may seems and it takes a lot of hours (preparing, choosing good files, snipping and editing). As you´ve heard, we currently do have more actors for the German part but this will change in the future so more Russian voices will come!

What you could hear too is that the voices of our actors differ from each other (characteristics), which is very important to serve different roles ingame (young soldiers around 18 aged and older veterans etc.). Here we got some of them again speaking the same sentence to compare their voices. The following spoken line means, translated “Deckung! = Cover!”

Find it here

When recording, we also make more than one version out of one line to chose the bests out of them in the very end and to have some variations ingame.

Find it here

We are extremely proud of our voice team performances and hope you like their work too! If you have any suggestions to add, feel free to post your idea right here in the comments!

Did you know?

1. A “good” microphone to make acceptable ingame voice recordings costs around 150 Euro (no other equipment included - if you want to seriously work with it you also need a well prepared room, some more supportive equipment and tools and software to achieve usable, final sound files).
   
2. It took us more than 2 years to find suitable, motivated persons for the German voice part (we had so much luck to have this great team now!)
   
3. For most sounds to be positioned and heard correctly in a 3D space, they must be in a mono format. The game will originate the sound and send the stereo result to your ears. This allows you to triangulate the position of the enemy.
   
4. We are still looking for Russian native speakers to apply as voice actors to be heard in GoH. Tell us here or on facebook/vkontakte if you would you like to be one of them:

http://www.barbed-wire.eu/join.html
https://www.facebook.com/gatesofhellgame/
https://vk.com/gates_of_hell_game

Last but not least (mostly for German natives), we want to share some outtakes with you!

Find it here

And that's it for today! We hope you enjoyed this dev blog and we are curious about your feedback. See you in the comments!

Hi everyone, here we are with a new dev blog. We want to thank you guys for the overwhelming reactions to our previous blog, that was really motivating. Keep it up guys!

This time, we would like to tell you about the sound(s) in the game and how we research and use them. Of course we also show you some of the results and ask you what you think of them.

This is a challenging subject for any developer.
Most Hollywood productions are useless as a source; except for just a handful of movies, they use the wrong sounds and equipment for almost everything. Does it sound familiar to you? You watch a ww2 movie and you hear yourself say “that’s a fake explosion” or “that’s the wrong tank” or “that equipment doesn’t belong here” every couple of minutes. As an example, check out JG2’s “FW190”s below:

https://youtu.be/t0gcap1hjPI
Even though this is an iconic movie, this bit just isn’t right at all.

So we can do several things: we can travel to museums and events where we can capture the original engine sounds of war (which we sometimes do), or buy the sounds.
Some of our weapon sounds are live recordings, some are acquired from 3rd parties. The right tank gun sounds were also difficult to find, just like engine sounds, but we got some already!
There again, unless we have had the extremely rare chance to do a live recording, it will have to come from elsewhere.

Last but not least we need explosions (lots of them ːsteamhappyː) and since we are not allowed to detonate anything at Barbedwire studios ːsteamsadː, we have to find another way to get those as well.
In the end, you don’t have to worry, we will make sure we get it absolutely right.


Are you one of those that can tell the number of cylinders when you hear an engine running? Allow us to reassure you with some of our assets then:

https://youtu.be/9xd8eV7h128
This is what the Maybach HL230 P30 sounds like.

https://youtu.be/gHuS82OL2bo
This is what the Model V-2-34 diesel engine sounds like.

We move on to artillery. Many games have a limited array of sounds for all guns. However, in reality, different shells make different sounds.
Let’s have a quick look at the use of larger calibre howitzers in- game. Logically, if we want to see an impact, first we have to fire the shell:

https://youtu.be/93djAdM7rNM
Friendly or enemy, if an artillery shell was incoming, everyone on the battlefield would duck for cover.

https://youtu.be/S-wi7vPvXD0
How do you like our sounds? Do you have any improvements to suggest?

• The first series of Panthers was rushed into battle at Kursk despite known technical problems, and the first two were lost to engine fires already during unloading from the train.
  
• T-34’s are still fighting today, in the civil war in Yemen.
  
• The Panther cost 117.100 Reichsmark, less than half the cost for a Tiger I (250.800 Reichsmark).
  
• The 1943 model T-34 cost 135.000 Rubel. The exchange rate of the day was 5:1 which means in Reichsmark it cost 27.000 so the Panther would have been more than 4 times the price of a T-34!
  
• Just a mortar shell explosion near a soldier (under cover) results in loss of hearing. Many soldiers went deaf this way.
  
• Engine sounds could be heard hundreds of meters far away. This would be good intel, especially at night.
  
• We have a facebookpage! Like & follow us to get our other “did you know” posts as well!

In the meantime, please tell us what you think would be really cool to have in the voice acting, so we can consider using it.
Last but not least; are you Russian speaking and would you be interested in recording for us as a voice actor? Please let us know.

In the next dev blog, we want to show you some German voice acting, so start getting excited for that!
Thank you for all your support and good luck until the next dev blog.

Hi everyone, here we are with a new dev blog. We want to thank you guys for the overwhelming reactions to our previous blog, that was really motivating. Keep it up guys!

This time, we would like to tell you about the sound(s) in the game and how we research and use them. Of course we also show you some of the results and ask you what you think of them.

This is a challenging subject for any developer.
Most Hollywood productions are useless as a source; except for just a handful of movies, they use the wrong sounds and equipment for almost everything. Does it sound familiar to you? You watch a ww2 movie and you hear yourself say “that’s a fake explosion” or “that’s the wrong tank” or “that equipment doesn’t belong here” every couple of minutes. As an example, check out JG2’s “FW190”s below:

https://youtu.be/t0gcap1hjPI
Even though this is an iconic movie, this bit just isn’t right at all.

So we can do several things: we can travel to museums and events where we can capture the original engine sounds of war (which we sometimes do), or buy the sounds.
Some of our weapon sounds are live recordings, some are acquired from 3rd parties. The right tank gun sounds were also difficult to find, just like engine sounds, but we got some already!
There again, unless we have had the extremely rare chance to do a live recording, it will have to come from elsewhere.

Last but not least we need explosions (lots of them ːsteamhappyː) and since we are not allowed to detonate anything at Barbedwire studios ːsteamsadː, we have to find another way to get those as well.
In the end, you don’t have to worry, we will make sure we get it absolutely right.


Are you one of those that can tell the number of cylinders when you hear an engine running? Allow us to reassure you with some of our assets then:

https://youtu.be/9xd8eV7h128
This is what the Maybach HL230 P30 sounds like.

https://youtu.be/gHuS82OL2bo
This is what the Model V-2-34 diesel engine sounds like.

We move on to artillery. Many games have a limited array of sounds for all guns. However, in reality, different shells make different sounds.
Let’s have a quick look at the use of larger calibre howitzers in- game. Logically, if we want to see an impact, first we have to fire the shell:

https://youtu.be/93djAdM7rNM
Friendly or enemy, if an artillery shell was incoming, everyone on the battlefield would duck for cover.

https://youtu.be/S-wi7vPvXD0
How do you like our sounds? Do you have any improvements to suggest?

• The first series of Panthers was rushed into battle at Kursk despite known technical problems, and the first two were lost to engine fires already during unloading from the train.
  
• T-34’s are still fighting today, in the civil war in Yemen.
  
• The Panther cost 117.100 Reichsmark, less than half the cost for a Tiger I (250.800 Reichsmark).
  
• The 1943 model T-34 cost 135.000 Rubel. The exchange rate of the day was 5:1 which means in Reichsmark it cost 27.000 so the Panther would have been more than 4 times the price of a T-34!
  
• Just a mortar shell explosion near a soldier (under cover) results in loss of hearing. Many soldiers went deaf this way.
  
• Engine sounds could be heard hundreds of meters far away. This would be good intel, especially at night.
  
• We have a facebookpage! Like & follow us to get our other “did you know” posts as well!

In the meantime, please tell us what you think would be really cool to have in the voice acting, so we can consider using it.
Last but not least; are you Russian speaking and would you be interested in recording for us as a voice actor? Please let us know.

In the next dev blog, we want to show you some German voice acting, so start getting excited for that!
Thank you for all your support and good luck until the next dev blog.

Hi everybody, it’s time for an update.

In this dev blog it’s about both Winter scenery and a map showing you how we use some of our assets to create a wintery atmosphere. We also want to show you part of our development to recreate operation “Wintergewitter”.

When we consider winter scenery for the game, we want things to be realistic of course. The conditions and atmosphere can be found in photographs like the ones below.





These are good study material but they are static and there are no dynamic effects.
So we used some different sources to complement this and the result can be seen in these effects and textures (all work in progress):



What do you think about these? Do they meet your expectations?

While we are showing you this content, we can reveal that we created a scenario with it!
As you may know, Wintergewitter (winter storm) was an attempt by the German 4th Panzer Army under the command of Erich von Manstein to break the Stalingrad encirclement. On December 12th, 1942 when the German offensive started at Kotelnikovo, it was a surprise to Soviet high command and initial gains suggested the offensive might just be able to relieve the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. After some days, the Soviet 2nd Guards Army was sent to block the advance, which it did.


One of our campaign missions will take you to Gromoslavka, the village that marked the end of the German advance - only 48 kilometres from Stalingrad.

The 6th Panzer division, under the command of Colonel von Hünersdorff, reaches the River Mishkova near Gromoslavka. There, the Germans run into the Second Guards Army streaming south across the bridge. Hünersdorff’s tanks are low on fuel and face a numerically superior enemy. Despite this, he deploys his tanks to engage the Soviets.
As the German tanks and assault guns blaze away at the Soviet positions, a Panzergrenadier Regiment crosses the Myshkova and secures a small bridgehead. Hünersdorff quickly sends reinforcements across and expands the German hold to a perimeter of just a few kilometres.
The bitter fighting for the expansion of the bridgehead lasts from December 20 to 22.

The situation that develops makes further German attack risky; the connection to the bridgehead is under severe pressure and besides that, the situation to the rear of the battleground (south of Mishkova) is anything but stable.

This is as far as “Wintergewitter” will get.
The 6th Panzer Army is not only blocked by the 2nd Guards Army after crossing the Mishkova, but there are all kinds of signs that the Soviets are readying themselves for a counterattack. German high command calls off Wintergewitter on the 23rd of December and all hope of rescue or relief for the German soldier in Stalingrad has now gone.


HD link
The Second Guards Army crosses the Mishkova river by night to engage the German attack. Hours later, the bridge is fiercely disputed.


HD link
After the battle at the south part of the village, the fight for the Gromoslavka bridge takes centre stage.


HD link
Gromoslavka. Note the icicles on the roof edges.

Did you know:

• One of the untold reasons why Wintergewitter failed was that the German reinforcements dispatched to von Manstein were exhausted from fighting in the “Rzhev Meat Grinder” near Moscow during Operation Mars. In this way, the heavy Soviet losses at Rzhev contributed significantly to the tactical victory at Stalingrad.
  
• Likewise, the quick gains made by von Manstein in the second week of the offensive were in part due to Soviet forces suffering from exhaustion after already having fought for weeks.

NOW: Back to our development, we have some questions for you!

1. When you look at these assets and imagine the wind blowing across at -30 celsius and the snow blowing in your face, can you feel it too?
   
2. Looking at the new map and scenario, what do you think?

We hope you liked today´s dev blog topic and we thank you for all your input that brings important infos to us to improve ourself and the game!