HD Link

Hi everyone, here’s another update on our project. We’re getting ever closer to release and this update will tell you a bit more about what it will contain.
So what’s in store? We have goodies to show you, and progress to report. Last but not least, we want to show you a briefing. Keep reading!

Our beta test will be very short compared to other beta tests, because of the way we set it up (with a relatively small group of highly experienced and qualified testers). This is now right on the doorstep and we will update you as soon as we can about any dates we set (including release).


HD Link

The beta will be about a new feature as well. This multiplayer feature will offer special units that can be called in when you start your battle. They are related to the time period of the war to keep a balance in that respect; They don’t force odd situations, like facing an IS-2 with a Panzer II or anything like that. Doctrines are meant to give you a choice of special units that suit your playstyle and your tactical ideas. Before starting your battle, you can choose (per faction and per war period) from 2 to 3 different doctrines, so the choice you make depends on how you want to fight at that moment.
Let’s say you want to have an attacking, aggressive tactic and you’re playing an early war scenario. You could choose “Breach and secure” to get special units that help break defensive positions. You could also do the opposite if you want to take a passive aggressive stance. In that case you choose “Not one step back”.
All in all there are 4 types of doctrine: offensive, defensive, support and all- round. Of these, 2 or 3 are available for every faction, depending on the war period. There are 3 war periods; early, mid and late. Doing the math, that means we have a maximum of 9 different doctrines per faction. In the initial release there’s a total of 16 doctrines, which will be expanded to 18 later.


HD Link


HD Link

Playing Call to Arms - Gates of Hell should be fun, and at the same time - like we have said from the beginning - we want to make it as immersive as we possibly can.
One element that we feel will contribute to the immersion is an introduction video for each SP mission. These will show you where the mission takes place, and its meaning in the grand scheme of things; we use the historical situation to get you up to speed for each mission.
We did a try- out a while ago and decided, based on this video, that we will go ahead and do all the missions like this:

https://youtu.be/4XDDwxZf7x0
We think it will contribute to the immersion, do you agree?


HD Link

• Roald Dahl, the author of “Charlie and the chocolate factory”, was a RAF fighter pilot in WW2, fighting in North Africa and over Greece.
  
• After injury forced him to stop flying in 1941, he became a spy for MI6 in the USA.
  
• Antoine de Saint- Exupéry, author of “The little prince”, was a fighter pilot too. He disappeared in 1944; the wreck of his P-38 was found in 1998.
  
• He was probably shot down by Horst Rippert of the Luftwaffe - a fan, who had read his books in the early 1930s.
  
• Kurt Vonnegut, author of “Slaughterhouse five”, fought in the US army and was taken prisoner during the battle of the bulge. He survived the bombing of Dresden as a PoW.
  
• Arthur C. Clarke, author of “2001 - A Space Odyssey” was a RAF pilot and technician in WW2. He helped develop radar systems, among which GCA radar.

That’s it for this month. Thanks for your continued interest & see you next month!

HD link

Hi, everyone, time for another update.
In this one we want to show you some more of the content you will find in our initial release.
Most of you will know that the background of our campaign missions is always a historical battle, and that we use the actual location for our maps.
Since we will have a dynamic campaign generator as well, it’s important to note that our DCG maps are an exception to that. But now, on to the SP mission we want to show today, which plays out in late 1943 when the weather becomes wintery.

Following the battle of Kursk, a change of strategy seemed to be necessary for the German army. Abandoning the “blitzkrieg” idea, the germans wanted to switch to a strategy that would lead to a battle of attrition, assuming the Soviets could be stopped by a strong defensive line, and that the losses that the red army would suffer when attacking the line would exhaust their offensive capacity. A construction order was signed on august 12th, 1943, and work began on a line that spanned from the Finnish gulf to the Crimea.
The northern part of the line was called the “Panther- Stellung” and the southern part was called the “Wotan- Stellung”. It ran along the Dnieper river for most of its length.

In retrospect, the fate of this defensive position seems obvious. The lack of building capacity and suited materials led to mediocrity and in the fall of 1943, the red army was already on the Dnieper and threatened to break through the line in several places. In late 1943 and early 1944, several breeches appeared and many german defensive positions found themselves threatened on their flanks. In many places they successfully repelled attack after attack but in other places the sheer weight of the soviet attacks could not be checked.


This is how Newsweek magazine presented the situation at the Wotan line in their december 6, 1943 issue


The mission in Gates of Hell
November/ December 1943. You command a small part of Heeresgruppe Mitte. You overlook a German defensive position just west of Gomel, and you are about to find out how many soviet units have already crossed the Dnieper river.
The weather is awful; the wind blows the snow around, chilling your men to the bone, and visibility is not very good either.
At first, you feel confident that your position can withstand any infantry attack from the east; you are fortunate to have the 20th panzer division on your south flank. But then, the red army attacks in force.
From the northeast, wave after wave of enemy infantry comes forward; the russian 3rd army is not short of anything and it shows!
Even if your position has no real bunkers, you should be able to fend off the waves of infantry. Your fate now depends on your ability to keep your troops supplied and keep your enemy out of your trenches.
Then, a familiar sound is heard from the southeast. Tanks! A first wave of T-34’s appears at speed, coming for your part of the line. You need assistance immediately! After a call to the 20th panzer, some tanks are put under your direct command. But how to stop an enemy that outnumbers you?
Well, that is for you to answer when you play this mission. If you want to get the historical outcome (defensive success) you’ll have to give it everything you’ve got!
We included some screenshots from this mission, what do you think of these?


HD link
Our buildings are destructible, allowing positions like this to be made


HD link
muzzle flashes last under 0,2 sec.


HD link
Listen to the sergeant’s orders and prepare for the attack


HD link
If needed, you can hide your StuG in a smokescreen


HD link
The enemy doesn’t throw snowballs
On to a completely different topic, one that has been a wish we have had ever since we started developing. This was one of our long- time goals, and now it’s complete; the addition of “doctrines”. This feature will be available in multiplayer.
What we call doctrines is a way of allowing each player to make choices based on their personal approach to doing battle.
Doctrines are sets of equipment that come as extras (special units), on top of your regular equipment. Depending on the task you see ahead, or based on your personal tactical preferences, you can choose a set of goodies to help win your battle.
They change depending on the historical period of your game. Examples of these doctrines are “breakthrough”, “order of the red banner”, “lend lease equipment” and the like. Each of these has its own set of units that will fit the role.
In a next update we will specify these doctrines, of which we have more than a dozen in the Ostfront release.


HD link
Screenshot from the Glushkovo mission, see the note below.

• The Elefant/ Ferdinand tank destroyer used the hulls that had been built for Porsche’s failed Tiger I design.
  
• The first KV-85s appeared at the front in september 1943, but production was halted after 148 had been built, just 3 months later.
  
• The KV series of tanks was named after Kliment Voroshilov, the defence kommissar and general who had commanded the red army in the winter war (after which he was made deputy premier of cultural matters).
  
• The T-34 was still in use in no less than 9 countries in 2018.
  
• The BT series of tanks followed a first modification (BT-2) of the american Christie tank, which was refused by the US army.
  
• Gates of Hell campaign missions are based on real locations. Check out how our Glushkovo minimap compares to satellite imagery HERE.

That’s it for now, thanks for stopping by & thanks for your continued support!

Hi everyone, we’re back and there’s a lot going on at the moment, so let’s have a look at what we’ve been up to. We’ve also promised to give you more schedule info, so here we go.
In general, we are progressing very well at the moment.

Our previous update was followed by our trailer, and we can only be pleased by the awareness and the positive reactions it generated.
Apart from that it’s been business as usual, so we’ve been very productive in the past weeks. A lot of work was done on the UI, while more new animations, new voice lines are being added and new DCG maps have been finished.
With the DMS support we get, it’s been a smooth ride and a real co-production so far.
Some examples:

• New Pak40 model is ready and in the texturing stage after the old one was discontinued due to some deviations from blueprints.
  
• Windmill is now fully finished with destructibility
  
• 72-K and SgrW 42 were exported (WIP)
  
• Winter Depot map is ready.

The beta will start as soon as we finish the UI. This is just a bit later than we intended but we’re going flat- out. The beta will be a big landmark because our testers will be the first ones outside the studio to see the game and as the saying goes, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”.
Perhaps we should note that our beta test is a closed beta. We were asked very often by people who want to take part, but we’re not planning any changes or additions to the team at the moment.



HD link

Our Discord server will go live when we start our beta. We intend to use it for communication with you, the community. Of course we will try to entertain you with visuals, maybe a Q&A here and there and a meta game. Meta games are a different format than the game they support. Ours will prepare you for your first campaign mission, and there’s some fun to be had on the way. More about that later.


HD link

We planned to tell you the release date today. However, It's a bit early to be announcing a definite release date at the moment. We are sure we can tell you very soon.


HD link

The past weeks have been quite intense for us. We are edging ever closer to releasing the first game we ever made. After all that happened, we now want to see our indie baby get born!

That’s it for the moment; so thanks for stopping by, and see you next time.


HD link

• Vkontakte
  
  
• Instagram
  
  
• Facebook
  
  
• Youtube
  
  
• Twitter

Please like & share.
Thanks for your support!

We are happy to announce Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront!

Digitalmindsoft, the makers of Men of War: Assault Squad 2 and Call to Arms, teamed up with Barbedwire Studios to deliver a new and exciting WW2 gameplay.

Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront is aimed to convey the realism that strategy players have always desired: Historically accurate visuals and locations, no health bars, no simplifications, no shortcuts taken. Offering unrivalled immersion to give the most legitimate WWII RTS/RTT to date.

Learn more about the game in our announcement trailer and new store page!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD0o9xC8lkM

https://store.steampowered.com/app/400750/Call_to_Arms__Gates_of_Hell_Ostfront/?beta=1

Hi everyone, we are still going strong, and we hope you are too!

Development is progressing nicely and we will soon be able to tell you the alpha test is done and the beta is looming. We’re getting a bit more excited now!
While we are preparing to update our store page, we think it may be nice to highlight a few features that you will encounter in Gates of Hell.
Some of these have been discussed in our devblogs over the past years, and because it’s hard to keep track (plus too much work to read all updates) we decided to do just a short list of selected features of which we think they will make Gates of Hell a completely new experience.


Many features have been asked for by the community, through our forums and social media; so thank you all for giving us such excellent feedback. We’re quite sure we’ve got the most wanted features right. Chances are that you see your own suggestion here already! Keep in mind that we will develop more after release; because development on the first DLC will start immediately after release. We plan to do quite a number, adding factions as we go along, and adding features wherever we can.

Here’s a selection of features:

• At least 150 vehicles of all sorts (including civilian), 70 human models, 80 small arms for the 2 factions in “Ostfront”.
  
• 12 historical missions, 10 multiplayer maps and 15 dynamic campaign maps
  
• All SP missions are historical and all SP maps are historical locations
  
• Realistic representation of ammunition and ballistics
  
• Realistic armor
  
• Suspension for vehicles
  
• All authentic vehicle and weapon sounds
  
• Crew hatches and other vehicle peripherals like smoke screens are operational
  
• Dynamic campaign mode
  
• Doctrines in multiplayer to specialise your army in different tactics.
  
• Authentic voice acting
  
• Flight models for aircraft have custom parameters for each type
  
• Detailed mechanics for all game items: Land mines include fragmentation mines, bouncing betty and magnetic mines. Bayonets and various melee weapons. Countless types of tools you can use in singleplayer to sabotage the enemy, and to build boobytraps
  
• Multiplayer gamemode mechanics representing a historical experience (“territory” gamemode)
  
• Peer to server multiplayer netcode in 64 bit architecture for smooth multiplayer experience, thanks to the advanced DMS platform.
  
• Realistic logic for repair and engineering work in the battlefield
  
• Vehicles have realistic crew settings, including large cannon, which may have up to 6 crew members
  
• Visualization for damage in each vehicle component. There are no health bars, but there's hints on the status of the component's durability.

There are many more new things, which you will find out on release!


HD link

Co-operating with DMS developers there are some very nice features that our game will benefit from. Thanks to the fact that DMS has developed (and is still developing) a Dynamic Campaign Generator, we have a great extra asset. For this mode we have developed a number of purpose- built maps, some of which can be used in other game modes too.
These maps are different from the ones we made before, because of the purpose they serve; this means that unlike our SP missions and campaigns, DCG maps are not based on historical events; you will have to write history yourself on these. We’ll be giving more details about the DCG feature later.



HD link

We are steadily working to deliver a fresh new game, in which we will have new voice acting. It’s almost complete, and yet we could still do with some voice actors. So, if you have a decent microphone and if you are a native russian speaker, please fill out the form on our webpage. Thanks!

Because we have switched to a different engine we must also point out that, as a result, we can’t provide Mac and Linux support any more. These OSs do not support our advanced directX and we are not in a position to change that. We’ve always aimed to be one of the few, but it is now beyond our reach unfortunately. We apologize if you are among those in our community who uses either of these OS’s. At first sight there is nothing we can say to “ease the pain” except that we will of course let you know immediately should this change again in the future.



HD link

We are putting the finishing touch on our new trailer, which we made to update our store page. When that is finished, we will put it on YouTube too. We expect this to be finished before the next blog. So subscribe to our YouTube channel (link below) to make sure you don’t miss it!

• Vkontakte
  
  
• Instagram
  
  
• Facebook
  
  
• Youtube
  
  
• Twitter

Please like & share.
Thanks for your support!

Hi everyone, we’re back with some more information about what we’re up to and how we want to arrange things for our release, which will take place later this year.
Since we made our announcement last month, a lot has happened and many questions were asked. In this blog we want to answer some of the questions we got.

“Will I need to buy 2 games if I want to have Gates of Hell?”
No. We will release Gates of Hell as a DLC for Call to Arms in such a way that you pay an amount that would be a reasonable price for 1 game.

There are 2 possible situations; either you already have Call to Arms or you don’t.

If you own any version of Call to Arms already, Gates of Hell will be available at a reduced price. It does not matter which version of Call to Arms you own.

If you DO NOT own any version of Call to Arms yet, Gates of Hell and the Basic Edition of Call to Arms will come bundled together for a single, moderate price. We will decide this soon.


HD Link

“Isn’t a 2020 release a far too ambitious goal, given that you are switching engines?”
No. Thanks to our specialists and to very energetic support from DMS we have already finished porting to the new engine. The waiting we had to endure earlier this year resulted in more time to produce content, and that’s exactly what we used that time for. This will allow us to offer way more content than we had planned for Early Access, which in itself is a step we will skip completely.

What will be the release date?”
The last thing we want to do is make a promise we can’t keep. We have dependencies in the process that cannot be ignored. But let’s just say we’ll be beta testing by the end of this summer, and that we will plan a date as soon as the beta is completed and any bugs we might find have been reworked. We aim to tell you in september.


HD Link

“When can we play the beta?”
We will beta test in a closed environment. Our testers have already been selected and we have no plans for doing an open beta, because we think that would be too much of a challenge to manage with our indie team.

“Will you be using the first person view that is typical of Call to Arms?”
This is not part of our original intentions with GoH, so the answer is no. Maybe this can be a future consideration, but for now we do not intend to use it.


HD Link

“Will Gates of Hell be just like Call to Arms?”
Even though we use the Call to Arms engine, Gates of hell will look and feel completely different. This is the result of implementing our own features and using our own philosophy for the game dynamics. For example, we have our own way of determining any damage in- game, based on entities like munition types, armor thickness and shot angles.
The result will be a game that doesn’t feel or look like Call to Arms.

“Which game modes will be available?”
We plan to have different modes of course; in the first place, we will have SP and MP content. The SP content will be a historical campaign for each faction, and the MP will be a historically-based asymmetrical PvP with the possibility of playing with AI bots.
You will be able to experience the evolution of the armies and their traits as the war evolved. A more competitive mode will be included for the ranked auto-matchmaker but nonetheless will still be historically accurate. We will tell you our own names for these modes at some point, and they will resemble earlier games to a certain extent, so maybe you could compare these to “assault zones” (which we call Territory) where controlling an area is not down to a small circle around a flag but to an entire area of the map. more modes will be revealed later.


HD Link

We will also implement a dynamic campaign, which will allow you to grow your army from mission to mission and will provide an immersive continuous campaign, outside of the singleplayer missions which due to their strict historical setup, cannot be interlinked story-driven. We will tell you about our game modes in a later devblog, most likely a blog that will give you an overview of features as well.

”When can we see a trailer?”
We have our specialist, and right now he is working on a new trailer. The previous one, which was almost finished, became obsolete the moment we knew we were going to use another engine. That’s life, but it basically meant “back to square one”. If this hadn’t happened it would have been finished months ago. So we’re working on it; this is as important to us as it is to you.


HD Link

”Will there be workshop support?”
Yes. We love the creative community and we will welcome any effort to add something special to the game by means of mods. In fact, we would encourage anyone who considers a mod for our game to use our forum as a starting point; over time, we have grown a big collection of suggestions and ideas that can be turned into scenarios. In fact, our forum is a perfect starting point for modders that are looking for ideas for mods that portray a historical battle which the world has forgotten.

That’s it for now. We will be back with another update in about 4 weeks.
If you haven’t done it yet, you could subscribe and follow us on social media to make sure you miss nothing! Click on as many links as you want:

• Vkontakte
  
  
• Facebook
  
  
• Youtube
  
  
• Twitter
  
  
• Instagram
  
  
• LinkedIn
  
  
• Our Steam store page

Thanks for your support, see you next month!

Hi everyone,
As promised last month, we want to make a few announcements in this update.
We would also like to share our view of the path ahead with you.
In the past months, people were already guessing about many different kinds of directions we could take after we broke up with our publisher.
The number of people that went out and gave us practical advice and pointed out possibilities to us was very encouraging. There were very sceptical comments as well, probably just because we could not announce anything yet - so it was no surprise to get those comments. But now, the time has come to move forward and tell you in which direction we will migrate and leave the past behind, and to share the bright future we see for ourselves.

”Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?” (An English castle guard, 932 A.D.)


We are very happy to announce that Gates of Hell will be released in cooperation with Digitalmindsoft, and that launch is to take place in 2020.
There are a number of obvious reasons to want to do it like this. One of the reasons is that the 64-bit engine we get from DMS is a very sophisticated evolution of the engine we conceived our game on.
So, we save time in comparison to switching to a completely different engine; instead, we will port to a version of the GEM engine that has been developed into the reliable and stable 64-bit version with out of sync free netcode that already powers Call to Arms.


HD Link


We came into talks with Digitalmindsoft, who became interested in Gates of Hell and who were willing to put in the needed software investment, but as they also have no rights over the engine and we didn’t have a license, there was little that could be done to release Gates of Hell as a standalone title.

Instead we agreed to incorporate Gates of Hell as part of the DMS game “Call to Arms" by means of a DLC. To most people that will sound a bit surprising, as GoH has little in common with CtA.
However, we put together a plan for the release of both projects under one license, without compromising the uniqueness of GoH.

Call to Arms: Gates of Hell will keep the own identity and gameplay it is supposed to have, while Call to Arms will continue onward in its own path. Our teams have agreed to keep the gameplay of GoH as intended to ensure the truly compelling experience you expect.


HD Link


We never stopped producing content, whatever was going on. We were able to deliver a lot of extra work; in all departments we have made more progress than we ever thought we would.
As a result, we think we will be able to give you a very generous amount of material in every department when we release the game, which we will do in 2020.
We want to start our beta by the end of this summer, and we are on our way to publishing still this year.
Publishing will mean we completely skip the early access part of our previous plans by the way, instead we will be going for full release! We produced so much more than was required for early access that we think we should skip that step.
Exact dates are to be determined.


HD Link


We put the extra time to good use. We’ve been producing lots of content and this is not just about more assets.
We’ll be introducing new voice acting, new animations, new sounds, new maps, scenarios and everything else will be new as well in the full release version, but maybe you already knew this.


Porting will be finished soon. We will then turn our attention to QA and start testing; first we test internally, and the next test will be the closed beta we tried to start all those months ago.
We are currently reviewing the closed beta briefings and we will be in closer touch with our beta testers than we have been for a long time.


HD Link


Our store page will be updated soon, to reflect the changes that we need when being part of CtA. Within our team, the excitement is growing, knowing we have excellent technical and community support, and knowing we are not going to hell in a bucket after all! We want to thank you all for your support and we will be working hard to make it all happen.



HD Link


Meanwhile, if you haven’t done it yet, subscribe and follow us on social media to make sure you miss nothing. Click on as many links as you want:

• Our Steam store page
  
  
• Vkontakte
  
  
• Facebook
  
  
• Youtube
  
  
• Twitter
  
  
• Instagram
  
  
• LinkedIn

In the meantime, stay safe everyone, and stay tuned!

HD Link

Hi everyone, we hope you are in good health at the moment. At Barbedwire studios everyone is okay, and we are still working hard to produce the best game possible.
Today’s update is about two subjects. First, project decisions and second, methods we use for producing content.
We are aware that people are a bit anxious about the future of our project - that’s why we want to tell you more about what we’re up to.
We also know many people would be interested in making content for GoH, so we also want to give you an insight in our methods that will make Gates of Hell rather realistic, independent of engine choice.

Since announcing our move away from our publisher we have been rather quiet. We were (and are) not yet ready to tell you the path ahead because we have to make important decisions first; hence the long radio silence. First of all, we are still very determined to publish our game. The process of engine choice is now under way. We are working hard to get this over with! We will announce this in June. These are tough decisions to make and we want to make absolutely sure that we get it right.
We want to thank the community for all the support we have received, in whatever shape. It feels great to have so many supporters. We will not let you down!

This part will be a little bit like the popular Discovery Channel programme that shows how stuff is made. Since we will offer full workshop support - regardless of which engine we will use - this might be nice to know for those that intend to make mods and other content for our game.

First step is to come up with an idea for a mission that seems achievable as a historically correct scenario. We have a number of elements to check before we start:
- Did this story actually happen?
- Can we view the historical location, in person or using Google?
- Has this story been covered by other games?
- Can a scenario be made that is entertaining?
These and other factors are used to decide whether we want to make a mission on the subject.
We start up with a shared document for use within the team. This document is then used to collect all data, visuals, historical annotation and anything else that is related.

Every scenario we develop needs research. There are many elements that we need to find out. First off, we use documentation from our own library and augment that with whatever information or images we can find in online sources.
- Find out all dates and times
- Find out which unit numbers and names are connected
- Find the historical location
- Find out the equipment used in the battle
- Find related photos of the battle
If we can check these boxes, we have an idea how to make things look.
Many times, reality is almost beyond imagination and we absolutely need that look at the real thing.


This is one of many photos we used to compare ruins of Stalingrad

We create all our models according to modern industry standards. This includes a variety of optimization techniques to ensure maximum performance and beauty are achieved.
All objects in game are modeled with use of real life references, with extensive attention to detail. For some objects in game we use the so- called photogrammetry technique.


This tree stump was made using photogrammetry

When the history and location have been approved, we can start making a map that is as close a copy of the real location as possible. Also, we need to look at the battleground and decide which part of it will be in our map. Nobody likes a featureless map with no cover, so we select the interesting parts of the historical battlefield.
To make sure things look natural, we then find out what kinds of vegetation and what kinds of housing/ buildings are common in the area. Not every region has the same trees, bushes and houses, so we take a close look at that to make sure the natural part looks right.
We also use old photographic material as much as we can, reproducing elements from those like road pavements, village layouts, bridge shapes and the like. Sometimes we can even model specific buildings that can be found in real life, because they survived the war.


The Tikhvin locomotive shed still stands today, making for a perfect example which we worked from

The next step is to make the map and the environment look like the real thing as closely as possible. To achieve this, we need all of the things we mentioned earlier, plus a height map of the area.
The height map, obviously representing the landscape perfectly, is then imported into the engine and used for further development, offering maximum realism.


height maps can be imported in the editor, using external data like from Google

When the map is finished, it is time to implement the scenario that turns it into a mission. We do that by combining the map with the assets and the right kind of units - according to a scenario, which in turn is based on the historical events. This basically allows us to re- enact whatever took place in the real location as closely as possible.
The result is a finished mission, representing something that actually took place 75 or more years ago.
Using these methods, we want to achieve a very important quality level, because we want Gates of Hell to play out on real locations, based on real historical battles.
What’s more; as we mentioned, we plan to offer full workshop support! This means you could use part of these methods (or all of them) to recreate battles that you want to bring to the attention of the world.
So, this is “how we do it”. Does this make you look forward to it?

We want to make the next announcements in june. After that, our next devblogs will probably be about things like features (a feature list) and the path ahead. We will also launch our own Discord server, probably this summer. This all depends on what we decide and on what happens next, of course. We are still on it, and we will publish. Despite the move away from our publisher and the hard road ahead, we are trying our best to make sure we release this year as planned.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t done it yet, subscribe and follow us on social media to make sure you miss nothing. Click on as many links as you want:

• Vkontakte
  
  
• Facebook
  
  
• Youtube
  
  
• Twitter
  
  
• Instagram
  
  
• LinkedIn

That’s it for now. Thanks for your support! Stay safe, and stay tuned.

HD link

In today’s world, people will tell you they strive for independence. They want to call all of their own shots, make their own decisions, market their own products, manage their own timetable, find their own way.
That’s quite logical, isn’t it? Being the master of your own fate feels quite good most of the time. Independence rules, right?

Well, for us, independence means something else. As you may already know, we’re an independent studio, poised to release our own game - which is also our first. We make our own calls on all of the scenarios, gameplay, sounds, features and anything that will make it more realistic than any similar RTT/RTS game that came before it.
The only 2 big dependencies are about the game engine, for one because it would take us years to make our own and none of us would want that, and otherwise we depend on the amount of spare time we have as a team to work on this project. It’s a good thing we don’t need money to develop!


HD link

At the same time, and because we develop in our spare time, we are extremely dependent on our community.
Fortunately, ours is a very supportive community. We receive support and positive reactions on a daily basis. We have some great supporters who voluntarily help us moderate community reactions - which is fantastic, considering we have never even asked them to do so.
Apparently, we have struck a chord with these great individuals and they seem to like the realism concept and they also seem to understand just what it takes to develop a game. Awesome.


HD link


We get so many positive reactions we sometimes have to pinch ourselves. Of course, and about 1 in 250 reactions, we get negative comments as well. But generally speaking, we love getting your comments and suggestions.

So yes, we depend on you, the community, because we’re independent.
Yes, we are thankful to the community. Keep the comments going, positive and negative.
No, we don’t mind a bit of salt here and there. It keeps us awake.
No, that will not kill our resolve; we will push on until we’re done making the most realistic and beautiful RTS game you have ever seen.
With the backing of our community, we are unstoppable.


HD link

Meanwhile, if you haven’t done it yet, subscribe and follow us on social media to make sure you miss nothing:

• Vkontakte
  
  
• Facebook
  
  
• Youtube
  
  
• Twitter
  
  
• LinkedIn

Hi everyone, it’s time for another update! With the end of the year in sight there’s some things we want to tell you. We also promised to show you some new animations, so let’s cut straight to the chase.

Right now we are very busy with behind- the- scenes decision making and planning. This needs to be done before we give you any dates and roadmaps. Our previous two development updates showed you the “visual catalog”. In the past 18 months we also showed you the kind of mission and the kind of realism you can expect from us. This devblog gives you an idea of the new animations. All in all, we are getting closer to early access every day.

We’ve been working on some nice features, such as the use of smoke dispensers on tanks.
Several ways of generating smoke to protect tanks were used in WW2. Some used launchers that were fired from inside the tank; some had smoke grenade launching canisters outside the tank; some tanks had “smoke candle” installations. We will portray all methods that were used.
These will feature on tanks that had them in real life, so this is not a general thing for every tank or every faction. This represents our goal of realism in the game; it would be wrong to have smoke dispensers on every tank, or to make them available for scenarios in any year of the war. Maybe you know which tanks will have these? At least the one below does:

https://youtu.be/0Vz3Gm_iv94
Tell us what you think, is this any good? Would you use this feature in- game?

https://youtu.be/9gbJTtxhy5w
(From ‘Allo ‘Allo)

On to the next subject, which is also about really new stuff we’re putting in Gates of Hell.

As we announced earlier this year, we are using MOCAP to create a complete set of all- new animations. We are very glad to have a nicely ambitious developer as our dedicated animator.
His work will give Gates of Hell a refreshing bit of realism to speed up getting rid of same old animations for 14 years. For instance, soldiers will not always simply fall over when killed; sometimes their struggle lasts a few moments and movements will occur until they are virtually dead.
Another one is that AI will know how to use a bayonet, but you may already have seen this in our YouTube channel.

So let’s show you a few of those new animations. Please keep in mind that these can be incorporated into the game at any point, so the fact that we are making these with the MOCAP software is not delaying early access. Here is a selection:





Remember that these are WiP, with some polishing here and there being planned. That is a difficult process by the way, but we will show you more animations very soon, without waiting for a devblog to show them to you.
So tell us, what do you think? Would you welcome the first new animations, after all those years? Do you like the idea of smoke screens?

We thought you might also want to see some recent modelling that came from the 3D department. Here are a few renders for you; can you correctly guess what these are? You’ll have to look really closely:


HD link


HD link


HD link


HD link


HD link


HD link

Let us know in the forums!

Meanwhile, if you haven’t done it yet, subscribe and follow us on social media to make sure you miss nothing:

• Vkontakte
  
  
• Facebook
  
  
• Youtube
  
  
• Twitter
  
  
• LinkedIn

Thanks and see you next month!