Bulkhead Interactive held a Battalion 1944 tournament back at the beginning of April, with €5000 and a selection of unique skins going to the winners of UK-based esports organization Endpoint. But the skins were slow in coming (and apparently still haven't been delivered), leading one of the team members, SUSPC7, to complain about the situation on Discord—a complaint that included a threat to shoot up the studio, complete with a reference to the April shooting at YouTube. 

SUSPC7 told The Verge that his outburst came after the developers brushed off his concerns about the delay in getting the skins. "Obviously I was just trying to be funny and shouldn’t have used the YouTube shooting as an example of that, basically saying they might answer my question if I did the same, but it was all just a joke that got blown out of proportion," he said. 

Word of the threat eventually found its way to Bulkhead, which responded in a firm fashion. "So a few months ago, I think you remember, you threatened that if we didn't get your skins to you soon you'd 'shoot up the studio'," Bulkhead boss Joe Brammer wrote. "It was really disappointing to see one of the best players in our foundation of the community, one of the winners of our first tournament take this attitude toward the developers. We are not a faceless Valve-esque studio who choose to remain silent for reasons like this, we choose to expose our personal lives and show players that we're people who care about FPS games." 

Brammer acknowledged that the threat wasn't meant seriously, but said that there's nothing funny about threats of violence and warned that the studio won't tolerate threats against it. Overall, though, he took a forgiving tone: He said that Bulkhead had considered holding back his Golden skin, but decided that would be too harsh. Instead, the developers decided to play a "real joke" on SUSPC7, and it's a pretty good one. 

"I myself have decided to draw a dick on the bottom on your Thompson Golden Skin," Brammer wrote. "People won't really see it, but we'll know it's there and I wanted to have a friendly joke with you. We're gamers too , we find things funny too, don't think just because we aren't a game studio we aren't people." 

Brammer expressed hope that SUSPC7 will do well in the upcoming Blitzkrieg Major in Amsterdam, and even offered to buy him a drink if he's there. He also suggested that if SUSPC7 decides to sell the skin (I imagine it would be relatively valuable, given its uniqueness), the funds could be donated to the Special Effect charity in the UK, which helps make videogames accessible to disabled gamers—and offered to match the donation if he does so.  

It's a positive ending to a situation that could have gone in a very different direction, and Bulkhead deserves full credit for handling it well. But the dick joke punchline shouldn't distract from the fact that the original threat, serious or not, was no joking matter at all, particularly in an era where gun violence is so distressingly common. 

I also wonder if this might actually encourage more players to try similar stunts in hopes of getting unique skins of their own: I have a feeling that there are plenty of players out there who would love to have an developer-engraved dick on their gun. This could ultimately have the unintended effect of forcing Bulkhead to come down harder on future transgressions than it might otherwise have wanted, just to ensure that its players get the right message.

Endpoint acknowledged that SUSPC7 crossed the line in a series of tweets. 

"We are hoping that this shows that both the studio and the player in question accepts that it was a real 'dick' move," Endpoint said. "It's important to us that people see that it wasn't forgotten. It was and still is completely unacceptable. We actually think the response from the studio is well executed. We reprimanded the player at the time and it will be a lesson learned to a young and aspiring player." 

A recent trailer for upcoming changes to multiplayer shooter Battalion 1944 promised something dramatic. The sunrise fanfare from 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', a.k.a. the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey, played as a soldier walked slowly through the street, turning a corner to see—a ladder. And then they climbed that ladder, and ostentatiously emptied their gun into the sky.

It's deliberately over-the-top, playing up one of the smaller aspects of what is actually a major update coming to the WWII fps in June, full of changes suggested by the Battalion 1944 community. Its Wartide mode (the Counter-Strike style bomb-defusing one) is being revised significantly enough to be called 'Wartide 2.0', and a seasonal progression system called BattleRank will be added, with free rewards unlocked through play. A new map called Savoia is coming, as are a laundry list of alterations and rebalancings, with a variety of aims including a reduction in what Bulkhead's studio lead Joe Brammer calls "the bunnyhop meta". I certainly died a lot of times to someone coming sideways around a corner in midair and would be happy to see less of that. Further down the line there's a tournament called the Blitzkrieg Major coming in September, with a $50,000 prize.

Brammer, and the rest of Bulkhead Interactive, are keen to show that their game is still alive and give people a reason to come back to 1944 one more time. He walked me through some of the changes.

PC GAMER: I saw the video debuting ladders, which is pretty funny. What made you wait till now to add them?

JOE BRAMMER: To be totally honest, we made a game that should take three years in two years! We just didn't have the time. I suppose players (even myself to some extent) think of ladders as "just a ladder". But in reality there are so many networking and technical challenges with ladders that it just took time to safely develop them. Even CS:GO only fixed its hitbox issues with ladders last year. I suppose the final straw that made us go "fuck it, we're doing it" was the feedback from the community. Often players said our levels lacked height and wanted things to be a bit less linear. So we decided that if we made ladders it would literally add a whole new level to our maps. Ladders make Battalion more dynamic and give our environments more verticality. It's been great for our game because it's simply made it more fun and as a player given you more freedom.

Tell me about the Savoia map. What makes it special?

It's in Italy! I think after over two years of looking at grey anonymous French farmland the art team were just about ready to quit! Release was brutal on our team, emotionally and physically with a lot of long work days. So when finally we'd fixed the core issues with matchmaking, I think I saw it as an opportunity to give the artists a new challenge. Almost like a "go away and make us something beautiful" challenge. And man, have they. I couldn't be prouder of our art team. With Savoia the color pallete of the world changes from gray and green to orange and yellow. I think that drastic shift from war-torn France to a bittersweet Sicilian warzone/town is a bit of a visual reminder that it was a WORLD war that stretched to vastly different parts of the globe. It's something we want to take advantage of in our art team, now we've got the support of the community and with our publisher backing and believing us more than ever, I think we're looking to make these big statements in Battalion 1944's art. 

We've just switched over to a shiny new renderer to bring our game into 2018. Previously we'd used an outdated graphics renderer because it was better for performance and made the game look and feel more like an old school shooter. But we realized we can still do both and deliver a 2018 experience. Savoia could be our best map yet, but its still got to get into the community's hands for vigorous testing yet!

What kind of skins are being added, and how do players unlock them?

Players can grind each level and unlock a War Chest, in that War Chest they have the chance to win currently a skin from 'The Original War Chest'. However, this War Chest will soon be retired forever! In its place we'll be adding the 'Aces High' War Chest. We're also adding 'BattleRank' where players can earn a unique skin each season. Starting with our Beta season with Major Update 2 in July. With each tier Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc. players can unlock a skin unique to that rank, with the higher ranking skins being naturally rarer and certainly... cooler.

How is 2.0 changing the Wartide mode?

Honestly, it's a whole new game really. We launched the first iteration of Wartide eagerly awaiting feedback. The community were keen to tell us what they didn't like about it, much of which came down to a lack of control of an individual's game. We've come more in-line with other competitive shooters now and tried to build upon the core part of what we had, that being the currency is physical in the world still, but now you can buy weapons with tokens, give tokens to other players in the buy menu, and finally and arguably most importantly we have a comeback mechanic. 

We wanted to give teams that were losing an opportunity to get back into the game, so now with loss bonuses we're able to do just that. From our experience playing so far, Battalion has a much stronger emphasis on economy sharing and game movement than other competitive shooters such as CS:GO. Wartide 2 is the new face of Battalion and with our open tournament we're excited to see an awesome level of competition going after that $50,000. 

Are these changes part of getting Battalion 1944 ready for the Blitzkrieg Major? And what can you tell me about the tournament?

I wouldn't say it's for the Major specifically. It's for all players really. But seeing as Blitzkrieg is an open tournament as Battalion's pro scene is only just starting out, I'd really like to see everyone just go for it! The new changes benefit everyone and like I said, the pro scene in Battalion is so fresh that we're seeing a lot of young and raw talent emerge. It's an exciting opportunity, I think. CS:GO is incredibly hard to break into with its years of expertise, Fortnite has a great focus on streamers, and Overwatch is its own beast. But Battalion is something new and exciting and I think that's what players are really getting behind when they come to Battalion 1944. 

The tournament itself is open to everyone, you can sign up at www.blitzkriegmasters.com for your regions qualifiers. Currently we are holding five online qualifiers in Europe where 10 can qualify and two in North America where two teams can qualify. However, we as Bulkhead Interactive also have two wildcard slots that we can choose to give to teams we think have played exceptionally well but fallen short or a team who have shown they deserve to be in the Major in another way. You can also qualify offline at the 'Fragadelphia' LAN event in North America and at The 'Gallantry Budapest' tournament in July this summer. Once all 16 slots have been filled, we'll be looking forward to seeing all teams compete at the Esports Game Arena in Amsterdam from September 27th to September 30th!  

What are some of the other improvements and changes happening as part of this update?

We've been regularly posting development blogs on the Battalion 1944 Steam news page. We're basically overhauling the game, now we have the time. That means new characters, new weapons, maps, better performance, new game mode, new sound engine, new graphics engine, visual overhaul and of course WORKING MATCHMAKING! But overall I'd say it's just everything the community has been asking for. One of the biggest things being we're massively reducing the 'bunny hop' meta where players jump around corners. It's still a viable strategy, but it's not always the optimal one. Often holding angles and guarding your position is the best way. 

Is the plan still for final release in February, and what are some of the other things you hope to add by then?

Yep! Of course this time round, if we aren't happy with what we have at that time we'll simply not release it. Full release is all about releasing a videogame that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Call of Duties and the Battlefields. Come February 2019 we have a lot of stuff we simply can't discuss yet, but we are adding the Russians! As well as in our next big update we'll be adding 'Arcade 2' which is our complete overhaul of our casual game modes. All in all, it'll be a great month for Battalion. Hopefully we'll speak in the coming months about what we have to announce because it's something that no other competitive game is doing right now.

We've added another exclusive in-game item to our package of PC Gamer Club Legendary rewards: this Flight Springfield S rifle skin for throwback WWII shooter Battalion 1944, which adds a stylish pop of PC Gamer red to your armory.

Courtesy of Bulkhead Interactive, the skin is exclusively available to new and existing members of the PC Gamer Club Legendary tier—if you're already a member, check your inbox! (Note that you must own a copy of Battalion 1944 to redeem the skin.)

This item joins a bunch of other great Legendary rewards, including exclusive cosmetic items for Elite Dangerous and Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, an ad-free version of the website, a digital magazine subscription, and game codes every month.

Head here for a rundown of everything you get by joining the PC Gamer Club, and to join, drop by club.pcgamer.com.

Battalion 1944's Early Access launch could have gone better. Players experienced long waits to get onto servers, and sometimes couldn't play at all. I managed to get in a bunch of matches on the day of the launch, then went back later and couldn't get past the loading screen. But a series of updates and an explanatory (and apologetic) video seems to have smoothed over both the game and its reception. 

Now I'm playing in unranked mode because, at least on Australian servers, the waits are shorter. I've been able to run around its vision of competitive WW2 bomb disposal having a grand old time. I've succeeded in planting the bomb a total of once and been murdered without knowing who it was that got me more times than I can count (there's no killcam in Battalion 1944), but then I watch someone skilled like Dizzy play a round and I want to go back and try again.

I spoke to Joe Brammer, lead of Battalion 1944 studio Bulkhead Interactive, about the  experience of putting their game onto Early Access and seeing what players make of it.

So, the launch. How many players were you expecting?

I guess we were expecting around 3,000 concurrent. We had a lot more than that. We doubted ourselves a bit. It was so hard to gauge right. No one thought, "Oh, we'll do PUBG numbers." Everyone thought, "Oh, everyone's playing PUBG so we're not going to get any players." It was very hard to predict. We had 19,000 on day one I think. Obviously that was always going to fall off, but it was a pretty good day one with the exception of all the issues we had, but the reason I say it was good is because we got to show the community how quickly we respond to things.

You've obviously prioritized talking to the community.

It's pretty key to us. We were pretty exhausted, we're probably still affected by it now, to be honest. Haven't really caught up on sleep, we've just gone to sleep earlier a little bit. It was pretty tiring for a long time, but we're happy with the work we did and what we got out, now it's just about focusing on the long-term game and seeing where it goes from here.

Now that people are playing your game, what have they done that's surprised you?

I guess I was surprised how quickly people were very, very good. I'm also surprised that people play the maps the way we intended them to play. When you see two teams going off against each other they play it like we designed it, which is really cool because you don't think that's going to happen. You have no idea, then you're like, "actually we're pretty good at this." That was cool to see but you know we're always seeing new things. People can jump on top of each other's heads and create new spots, that was cool to see—how creative players would be with movement. It was definitely fun to see people playing and enjoying the game.

I've seen people on top of lamp posts.

Yeah. Some of that's intentional and some of it isn't but they found it and it's good to have like a bit of variation I think and allow players to be very creative with the movement. 

The maps are very readable, lots of flat walls and not much clutter. What other things did you do to keep your game legible?

We wanted to keep everything really basic, just totally useable, you can see where people are, that was really important for us. When we came from COD2 and COD 4, when we were looking at those games, one of the reasons they were so good is because they were so simple and basic. We tried to keep that in. Anyone stands out against a gray background so it was a predominant theme we kept seeing in those games, which is kind of annoying for the people that wanted this realistic Battlefield experience where it's like Frostbite engine stuff but we were never going for that. We were always super focused on gameplay and players being visible, that kind of thing.

When there is color it's very noticeable. When someone says "red building!" on the Coastal map, you immediately know what they mean.

Yeah, I think if you look at Coastal, you quoted that one, that was us probably being a bit sick of gray. We were like, "We need to change this up a bit," and we couldn't go to a normal building color, like an orange-y or yellow tan color, because that's the color of camouflage a lot of the time, browns and yellows. So we were like, "Let's go bright yellow and bright pink, just make everything really colorful." It works I think. That was our "fuck you" moment to gray in Normandy.

You must be more sick of it than anyone.

For sure. If you've ever been to Normandy it's very gray. That's what it looked like! It's gray everywhere: sky, walls, floor, everything.

You've pushed back the release of ranked mode, but it's just about ready to go live now?

We pushed it back because we were confident we had a community that we could do that with. We pushed it back and we'll be going live this Thursday. It's looking good and our matchmaking is pretty stable so we're happy now. We just had to get the confirmation in and see the game evolve a little bit. We made some weapon changes last week and we're happy, we're in the place we can comfortably go to matchmaking, it's not like a shot in the dark or anything. We've managed to test matchmaking, test the game itself, we're confident going into competitive. Excited for Thursday, to be honest.

Is there anything else coming soon?

There is a new competitive map coming out soon, that's all I can say.

I've heard that you're planning to make some changes to the card economy.

Basically we knew from the start that the card economy was a negative system. In Counter-Strike you're always earning something. Even if you're losing you earn money, but in our game it's about attrition. You're always giving stuff away and losing cards, and that didn't feel very good. It just felt negative, so we decided that we'd find a new way to do that. We're basically keeping true to the core mechanics behind the card system which is picking up cards, you pick up the physical currency in the world and we're gonna add a basic form of currency. It's not cash or anything, but there'll be an economy that's probably a little bit more in line with CS: GO. 

And what that does, it gives us the ability to make the game a lot more dynamic and move a little easier. Yes, you'll still be able to pick things up in the world and yes, you'll still share a team economy, you won't have your own money, but what you will have is maybe the ability to plant a bomb and by doing that you'll receive currency. Or knife kills, you'll get currency. That's a little bit more rewarding for the player and also incentivizes doing the game objective and that sort of thing. That's the plan, but that'll be in our third major update I think.

Do you watch a lot of streamers playing your game?

Yeah, all the time. I think I like watching the guys with under 20 streamers because they're a bit more authentic, they're just trying to make a stream. When the game came out we jumped on a stream and and I said hello, this guy's like "Oh my god, it's the developers!" We're like, "Hey man, are you having a good time?" He's like, "Yeah, just trying to figure out the game." I'm like, "Well, have you played in a team yet?" And we invited him to our Discord, we said "You can keep streaming, we'll just play with you if you want, as a five." He loved it and that was great. We like doing that kind of thing.

How do you feel about the community you've gathered?

I think we planned from day one, before the game released we knew that we'd get X amount of players and then we'd lose some over the next 10 days. It's just videogame development, especially in Early Access. You have people fall off, that's not unheard of, we know the game's going to go down in player concurrents for the next six months. No one knows what we're gonna have in six months and no one knows what we're gonna announce in a year, but it's basically everything the players wanted and more. People saying, "The game's got a fourth of the amount of players it had on day one." Well, yeah, that's just how games work. But they don't know the information that we have, so that's super frustrating to see but we just ignore it now.

Like with Lawbreakers, people were more interested in watching the numbers than saying anything about the game.

It's frustrating cause SteamDB provide a good service but also they just—videogamers are the most entitled community ever, really, and that's great because us the developers get to get raw, genuine feedback but it's also not good because it's not the player's job to worry about player concurrents and it's not the player's job to worry about how many copies were sold because people don't know how important that is to them. They don't understand that we've actually, in terms of Bulkhead—let's be quite honest—we've made back our investment in Battalion 1944, so everything we're doing now we don't have that added pressure of, "We need to make money back so that we can please our publisher" or anything. 

Our publisher and us have made our money back and that means we can focus on making the game succeed long-term, over five to 10 years, and that's our focus now. That doesn't show up on SteamDB. That doesn't show, but I think players should worry about the gameplay part more and things like SteamSpy need to be a little bit better controlled by Valve because it hurts the economy of game development a little bit. But it's cool, freedom of information's great, so no problem really.

Do you still enjoy playing Battalion?

I've got hundreds of hours on Battalion so for us it wasn't like, "The game's out we can play it now!" We've been playing it a lot and still on the weekends we get some time to play together. I guess I personally want to play competitive and for me I want to be playing towards points and rank and that kind of thing. I think that in the future that's what we're going to be enjoying in the game is the competitive part, and also modding when we get to that. It'll be cool to see what other people do with the game. But for us obviously we've played it so much that it's not new for us, so I think ultimately we're excited to play the new content that we're working on now. When we get to that and give it to the community we will have played it. We're always kind of ahead there!

What do you want to see modders do? I know you've mentioned new factions.

We're adding factions ourselves but it would be cool to see the Gurkhas or something, that's not something we're doing and I'd like to see them do it. I think modding, I wouldn't want to say, "This is what I want to see" because the point of modding is I don't know. I want someone to take whatever they want, we've given them the palette and they can paint whatever they like. I came from a modding background, I started modding Battlefield when I was nine I think, or Half-Life. Big modder, then moved into game development at school. I just want to see people have fun with it, do whatever they want. Treat it as a sandbox. And then we work on our game mode specifically. I love modding, can't wait to see it.

Here's my entitled gamer question: why no killcam?

Because it's the most complicated thing in the world to write. We actually had it really early on, a really basic version of it and then we he had to choose between spectating and killcam. Call of Duty, every three years they start with a base game so they have like where we are now, where we will be in a year actually, they have a finished version with everything working: matchmaking, killcam, everything. They then spend three years refining that and making it perfect. We built, for less than a million dollars, in two years, an FPS game—and we still have to add killcam [laughs]. Players are so used to it. And like you said, this is your entitled player question, right? They're so used to it they don't realize it's so complicated to write. You have to roll back time and be actively recording what is happening to a player then roll back time and play it. Because it's not like a video that plays again, if you see sometimes in Call of Duty the arms or the gun will pop in afterwards, that's because they're replaying the animations and you have a spectator controller that replays it all. It's crazy complicated!

What else have you got planned?

A few things, nothing major. In three weeks we're doing a pretty big update where we're going to include a new map as well. It's coming but not right now.

VIDEO: A quick introduction to Battalion 1944's old school style and competitive modes.

Battalion 1944 is a throwback FPS, but not to the days of Quake and Doom. It's a shooter built for those nostalgic for the early 2000s and simpler, more straightforward WW2 battles. You won't find Call of Duty's modern killstreaks or progression here, but you will find a strong resemblance to Call of Duty 2's tense search & destroy mode and some very satisfying bolt-action rifles.

Battalion 1944 is still working through some Early Access launch growing pains, but it's already a refreshingly straightforward shooter for 2018. Matches are all about fast kills with familiar weapons. And bunnyhopping. Lots and lots of bunnyhopping.

Above you can learn more about Battalion 1944 in our short commentary video. If you're looking for some raw gameplay, check out the video embedded below, which shows off the Domination and team deathmatch modes from Arcade, and the search & destroy-style Unranked.

Bulkhead's aim with Battalion 1944, which has just launched in Early Access, is to capture the feel of classic WWII multiplayer games such as Call of Duty 2, and to a certain extent they've succeeded. It's a stripped-back experience, with intimate maps and accessible yet satisfying gunplay. At the moment, there are some significant problems that need to be addressed, especially server and matchmaking issues. When the game works, however, it's obvious there is a solid base here for Bulkhead to build on. 

There are currently two modes. Unranked (a ranked mode is coming) is about bomb disposal and team elimination, while arcade is a randomized playlist of three different competitive games: capture the flag, domination, and team deathmatch. Arcade is a great introduction to the game, while unranked offers a quicker, less forgiving experience for those who want to demonstrate their skills. 

I died a lot earlier in unranked than I did in any of the arcade modes, as it's more about individual talent than pushing as a team. The pace is also much faster than I'm used to, with players constantly bumping into each other in tight alleyways and buildings. In one round I risked not checking around a corner and was immediately punished for it by a quick shot to the head. This didn't put me off, however, and actually highlighted how fun Battalion is to spectate. Watching the surviving member of my team as they tried to pull us back from the brink and disable the explosive the enemy had planted was nail-biting. After dusting myself off, I was eager to jump back in and take my revenge.

There is a competitive mode on the way too, but at the moment this is still locked and will be activated on February 8. That's fine by me, as many of Battalion's issues would be less forgivable in ranked competition than they are now.  

Not an issue are the maps, which are excellent. They include trenches, rural villages, and a lighthouse and forest setting. Each has shortcuts and tricks to exploit once you've discovered every nook and cranny, and work across the different modes. The Coastal map, for instance, allows players to use windows to sneak around and get the jump on the other team. I used this tactic a lot, especially on capture the flag. It allowed me to break away and slip through their defense when my team were pinned down in our own area, helping to overturn a stalemate.

The weapons are also superb. This is an area that's improved significantly since I last played. In the closed beta scoped rifles dominated, but this is no longer the case. It's now harder to get off cheap shots with the rifle while moving, and this is reflected in more weapon diversity, with players using all the available loadout cards. I'm not sure whether they've made any changes in terms of damage output, but it also feels easier now to get kills with the automatic weapons, something I struggled with in the beta as I couldn’t stay alive long enough to get in enough shots when facing someone with a rifle. 

The main problem right now is with the servers. When the game went live, they struggled to cope with the demand, meaning that many, like me, were locked out for a long time. 

Bulkhead worked on a temporary fix throughout the night, and managed to get it working for some people, but there are still some issues getting into games. This is annoying, of course, but it's worth noting that very few independent studios have attempted what Bulkhead is trying to achieve by developing an online first-person shooter of this size. They've also been fantastic with keeping players up to date, and studio lead Joe Brammer has taken the blame for this, apologizing to players and shifting the fault away from his team. 

I'm still having trouble finding games, with unranked being much harder to get into than arcade, but the team is still working on another, more permanent, fix. It is currently possible to get in and play, if you have the patience.

Match balancing is a problem, too. I've entered a few games now to find the opposing side have outnumbered my own team. Currently, there's no way to swap sides in a game or for others to join late, which means all you can do in those situations is play and hope for the best. This is one area I hope is fixed during Early Access, especially as a few of the games I spectated in unranked saw players rage quit, leading to even more uneven teams.

There are also smaller concerns like missing prompts. During my first unranked game, I ran over to plant a bomb and didn't have any idea how to do it, having never played before. I thought the game would give me a prompt, but I was just left to figure it out by myself, spamming buttons. If it wasn't for my team chat I probably would have died and cost us a win, but luckily they told me to hold the F key just in time. 

Battalion 1944 is a promising game and I do recommend it. For the moment, though, that endorsement comes with caveats. It's still rough around the edges and needs more player feedback before it's ready. You may also want to hold back and wait for all the server issues to be sorted, too. 

Nevertheless, Battalion caters to specific type of player who has been ignored for a long time and the developers are some of the most active and transparent I've seen in this genre.

Battalion 1944 is a competitive multiplayer FPS set in the Second World War. It's an old-school shooter, inspired by the early Call of Duty games, and there's obviously a lot of demand for that sort of thing. The game's launch on Early Access yesterday almost immediately drew in more than 16,000 players, which is good news but also bad, because the player count quickly overwhelmed server capacity. 

In a video apology, studio lead Joe Brammer accepted sole responsibility for the issues, saying he made the wrong call when estimating the server capacity required for the Early Access rollout. More than 100,000 keys were given out during the closed beta, which peaked at around 5000 concurrent players, he explained, and based on that and the players counts of other, similar games like Day of Infamy or Days of War, he took his shot. 

"We have to pay for these servers that we set up, and I didn't want to put us in a situation where we spend way too much money and we were in trouble," he said. "I made those predictions and I let my fear of us failing get in the way of my confidence in this game being really good." 

"It is Early Access, I don't want to get into using that as an excuse. I find this unacceptable and that's why I'm making this apology. I'm just personally embarrassed that I doubted myself and my team on how many units we would sell and how many concurrents we would have." 

Battalion 1944 has been updated since yesterday's rollout and should more reliably find servers (there may still be some waits involved), and the team has also tracked down a bug that keeps community servers from hosting more than ten players at a time, although that may take some time to fix. And despite the problems, it seems to be going well: Today's peak concurrent player count fell just a hair shy of 12,000, and at time of writing there are more than 11,000 people playing.

Bulkhead Interactive's last game was first-person puzzler The Turing Test, a philosophical game about artificial intelligence and human morality. So when they launched a Kickstarter for a multiplayer World War 2 shooter, it seemed like it came a bit out of left-field. It was obviously a passion project for the team, however, and their pitch communicated that well—so well that they blew past their target and raised £317,281.

What they were pitching was a resurrection of a specific kind of FPS multiplayer, the kind Call of Duty 2 players fondly remember. It wasn't just about WW2 as a backdrop, but about a specific kind of speed and balance and movement, a bundle of gamefeel notions that more recent shooters, no matter what their settings, have moved on from. A game without unlockable skills or equipment, with strafe-jumping and speed but still with aim-down sights and guns like the beloved M1 Garand.

Bulkhead have just announced that Battalion 1944's going into Early Access on February 1. Studio lead Joe Brammer told us what to expect.

PC Gamer: What is it about WW2 that's such a draw, especially now?

Joe Brammer: For us the draw has never really been WW2, if you know what I mean? It was popular when we were growing up playing FPS games, so it felt fitting to choose WW2. A staple part of our original Kickstarter campaign was to create a fair and balanced FPS game, WW2 weapons are pitted nicely against each other anyway, so it made a lot of sense to keep true to the weapons that each faction used and let the all out war between each faction commence. We didn’t want to let over-design get in the way of simplicity, because that’s what classic shooters are about, going back to basics.

Were you surprised by the response to the Kickstarter?

It sounds a bit cocky maybe, but we weren’t. I didn’t suggest making this game because I thought it would fail. I knew there were FPS fans just like me that were tired of going home and playing the same shooters that I was. Before this we were making first-person puzzlers, and we were pretty good at it too! The Turing Test was looking like a great game and it sold really well, but it wasn’t our main passion. We wanted to make something that would shake up the industry a bit, so when we pitched Battalion, we weren’t that surprised that people were feeling the same way we were about FPS games.

How long has Battalion 1944 been in alpha now, and what's feedback been like?

Battalion ran its first alpha in May 2017. We got some great feedback and everyone was so excited that we spent the whole weekend putting out fires for that insanely early version of the game! Recently we’ve been running alpha testing sessions every weekend and the community know that it’s all about getting the game ready for Early Access. The feedback we receive from our alpha team is always focused on making the game better. We have to argue back and forth a lot with them on Discord or the forums, but I like to think instead of being a regular developer and replying "Thanks, we’ll take that on board" we reply with "No, we don’t like that idea for these reasons…" [so] our fans see us as honest and open? The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, which is great, but it’s also frustrating because trying to find what’s wrong when everyone is telling you "it’s great!" can be tricky.

Why do you want your game to be moddable, and what kind of mods do you hope players create?

I come from modding, when I was 11 I used to be a part of the Battlefield and Half-Life modding communities. I love that 14 years later *wince* I can be doing this all day every day. I want Battalion to be a platform for other people to be able to create some amazing mods. For me I’d like to see a mod that brings in a totally new faction that’s not been done before, maybe the Gurkas, or the German Resistance? Someone totally new that we can work with the mod team to make a part of the full game. Competitively of course, we’d love to see some great competitive maps that we can help fund if they look like they’re going in the right direction.

Battalion 1944 is quite different to The Turing Test but are there any lessons from making that game that have carried over?

I mean we’re always learning when we’re making games, especially when you’re young. I like to think The Turing Test taught us to believe in ourselves more. I know it's corny, but I genuinely believe my team are one of the best groups of game developers in the world. When given the right opportunities Bulkhead can really make something special. The Turing Test was obviously a learning curve, every game we do gets bigger and bigger, but I don’t think Turing Test prepared us for the mammoth that is Battalion 1944, but we’re here now, we’ve made it. Now begins the journey of Early Access.

Battalion 1944 has elements of authentic recreation (the weapons, bullet penetration, mo-capped movements), but at the same time it's a game about strafe-jumping and running along walls. What is it about the contrast between the grounded parts and the over-the-top elements that's so appealing?

We have to be careful when using the word ‘authentic’ because people often get the wrong idea about Battalion 1944. I think we felt that the realistic shooter market is being well catered to. Our friends at Squad and Insurgency are doing excellent work and continue to grow their games as part of the FPS revolution we’re seeing the last few years, where fans are taking control of the genre. So we didn’t feel the need to try and get involved in that subgenre. But we did feel that we should be true to the time period and era, the weapons are created from real sources with plenty of research put in.

We have a little too regularly traveled to Normandy, and if you think our game is a little too gray, you should visit Normandy! We try to bring color into these war-torn grey environments by using often sunrise/late afternoon lighting to keep a nice bright feel to our levels. In regard to the ‘Over the top elements’ I’d have to massively disagree with that comment, there’s nothing over the top about our movement, we’ve struck a nice balance between games like Enemy Territory, Call of Duty 2, and Quake and more modern competitive shooters like Counter Strike: Global Offensive. We felt that was a winning combination, we’ve had to ‘rewrite’ a lot of code that was once considered ‘buggy’ but now in Battalion is hailed as a massive technical achievement. The greatest moment for us was an anonymous email from an ex-COD2 developer saying "I don’t know how you rewrote the kar98 rifle code to work that way, but you did it!"

Why no ability unlocks?

Other games have this covered, it’s just not a part of our design ethos. We do have classes, but they’re limited in what they can do, it’s more competitive and balanced that way.

Why five-vs-five?

We toyed with 4v4 and 6v6 but 5 is a number that works really well, honestly, I couldn’t tell you why it is. But when we tried competitive games with different numbers, 5v5 just works the best by far!

What modes will be available at launch?

CTF, TDM, DOM, FFA, and ‘Wartide’ our new competitive game mode

What kind of cosmetics are available, and how will they be earned?

We have ‘Warchests’ containing tastefully relevant and designed weapon skins which can be purchased in the Battalion armoury in-game, don’t worry, you also get one every time you rank up, which is pretty regularly in Battalion! It’s also worth noting that whenever you buy a chest from Battalion 1944, it gets reinvested by us into making more content such as maps, weapons, factions, and it also goes into a tournament prize pool. So if you get involved with our ‘Warchests’ you know your money is helping make the game and your playing experience better.

Why do people love the M1 Garand so much?

Play Battalion, turn up your volume, and listen for that PINGGGGG!