With the release of "Battlefield 1," it seems like historical first-person shooters are back in vogue. "War Thunder" publisher Gaijin Entertainment is capitalizing on this opportunity by launching a crowdfunding campaign for "Enlisted," a new World War II shooter promising epic 100-player battles.
"Enlisted" is being developed by fledgling Latvian studio Darkflow Software using Gaijin's proprietary Dagor game engine, the same one used in "War Thunder." It will feature destructible maps based on actual battlefields in WW2, starting with the Battle of Moscow and the Invasion of Normandy.
They have added stretch goals on "Enlisted" as well, with the Tunisia campaign for $250,000 and a "players' choice" campaign at $500,000. A players' choice game module will be made available at $750,000, and console releases will be made possible at $1,000,000.
This continues the trend of Gaijin taking ideas from "Battlefield" and expanding on them. "War Thunder" elaborated on military vehicular combat that first gained prominence in "Battlefield 1942" and made it available in a free-to-play format. It seems like they're about to do the same with large-scale infantry combat with "Enlisted."
However, while the game will pit players against each other in battle, the main aim is to accurately recreate historical warfare and not "sports-like competition." The official website of "Enlisted" had this to say about how these battles will work.
"Battles involving equal teams in equal conditions are, of course, interesting as a competition. But they do not have the immersion or the thrill of real battle, where balanced forces and symmetrical objectives are unlikely."
In a time when eSports has become the thing to strive for in gaming, this focus on historical accuracy and making it not for eSports is perhaps a welcome change for gamers who want to play an online multiplayer game without being pressured by its competitive aspect. Historical games have remained relevant in some form throughout gaming history, but there has been a surge in interest regarding their historical accuracy in recent years.
The "Enlisted" website also states that if ever the game ends up not being released, funds given to the crowdfunding campaign will be returned to the users' Gaijin.net account for use in their other games like War Thunder and Star Conflict. As of this writing, the campaign for this new WW2 shooter with 100-player battles has gathered over $16,200 in pledges.
