As I settle comfortably into my Unc arc, I’ve found myself spending more and more time with military simulations. Yes, I still enjoy the chaos and ridiculousness of modern Call of Duty, but I find myself drawn more and more to more thoughtful approaches to warfare. The WW1 series is arguably the most “realistic” approach to the first-person war-shooter genre in the market today, and WW1 Gallipoli, coming out sometime this summer, is the next entry in that long-running franchise. From my all-too-brief time with it on the show floor at PAX East, it might be the best WW1 game so far.
I bet you could ask anyone in the US to name the major powers involved in the second World War and they’d easily list off the Axis and Allied powers. If you changed it up, though, to ask about the first World War, plenty of Americans would have a much harder time. Personally, I didn’t learn much about World War 1 in school other than the United States swooped in near the end and helped save the world from ruin. The reality of World War 1 is so much more interesting and complex: in short, the entire system of human civilization at the time was completely upended.
These weren’t just countries fighting other countries, these were empires and monarchies at war, ruled by Emperors and Kings. The days of war as a great gentleman’s adventure were violently ended as bodies stacked up in the face of new and horrible mechanized ways of killing never before seen. The fallout from World War 1, or as it was known then, the Great War, shaped the entirety of the 20th century and still affects us even today. World War 2 may have been the bloodiest, costliest conflict in the history of humanity, but even that world-shattering contest was the direct result of the events of the first World War.
The WW1 game series’ commitment to accuracy, while deftly weaving in gameplay elements to make it fun, is one of the things that drew me into WW1 Isonzo, the most recent game in the series. I actually wasn’t familiar with it until I got the invitation to check out Gallipoli. I ended up loving it so much I bought the entire series and expansion content during the Steam Spring Sale.
The first thing I noticed in WW1 Gallipoli compared to Isonzo is just how much better it looks. Granted, Isonzo is now a four-year-old game, but the foreboding cliffs of the Gallipoli coast are visually much improved over the previous entries in the series. The trenches scraped into the hardened earth of the peninsula have an unevenness that makes them feel more alive, in spite of the horrors of trench warfare. As someone who dealt with the soil in that part of the world during my time in the Air Force, I was really impressed by just how much the graphics mirrored the behavior of trenches dug into the hard ground. I want to reiterate, I experienced it the most 21st century way, with diesel-powered equipment. I can’t even imagine digging those trenches by hand.
The battlefield itself is recreated using photogrammetry, another modern technique that ensures accuracy of every crag and nook along the coast. If you’ve played Isonzo you know that sometimes the terrain has a decidedly textured-polygon look, but that was largely absent from my experience with Gallipoli.
There are also new classes available in WW1 Gallipoli: Ammo Bearer, Bomber, Heavy Machine Gunner, and Stretcher Bearer. I played in the Light Machine Gunner class, which developer BlackMill games describes as “similar to Assault” in Isonzo. Ammo Bearer and Stretcher Bearer are support roles and can be set up differently depending on how you like to play. For example, the Stretcher Bearer lets you either heal teammates “from your backpack,” or you can choose “faster heal speeds and additional medic crates” to help your downed squadmates in the action.
I played as an Australian soldier tasked with storming the beaches to take control of the battlefield. Once again, the game does not shy away from putting you into the thick of the authentic WW1 experience. Whereas D-Day’s first charges launched out of mechanized landing craft, the start of the campaign I played at PAX East had the Aussies rowing into shore. Yes, row boats. One of the funniest things about playing at the convention was how many people stopped in their tracks as they passed the WW1 Gallipoli booth to remark incredulously on rowing into a wasp hive of machine gun fire.
Needless to say, I did not make it to shore with the rest of my company, but I was able to spawn on the beach. Another improvement in WW1 Gallipoli compared to its last entry is you can just give up now. You no longer need to spam for help as you bleed out, if it looks like no one’s going to help you, you can just push F and nope right back to the nearest spawn point.
It took me a little while to get used to my role as a machine gunner. In spite of my time with Isonzo, I still ran in like I was in a CoD match. Which I was not. At all. And of course, I was punished for it. The commitment to realism means more than just “everything looks the part,” because everything acts the part, too. For example, hip-firing a WW1-era machine gun? Yeah, good luck with that. It’s impossible to aim, flinging the barrel up randomly in a way that’s impossible to compensate for. For me to lay down fire meant I either had to crouch or lay prone, then set my machine gun up on its bipod.
But once I did, oh baby did that feel good. You gain experience from laying down suppressive fire, so even during times when I wasn’t close enough to any of the enemy to register a kill, I was still able to help my team by pinning our opponents down in their trenches. There’s something extra satisfying about seeing all those experience points popping up on screen while you also help the squad gain ground.
Another commitment to realism is how you can’t really lone-wolf it in WW1 Gallipoli. Teamwork is absolutely crucial to success here, which is how squad-based first-person shooters should be, in my opinion. Do you know how many team-based CoD matches I’ve played where 90% of the team is running around like it’s Team Deathmatch? Do you know how often I’ve unmuted my mic to remind people to capture the damn objective? It’s gotta be in the thousands. Probably billions.
However, my time with Isonzo bodes well for my future time with Gallipoli, as the players drawn to this type of game do the craziest thing: they actually work together towards capturing, or defending, the battlefield. A friend of mine described the WW1 series as “digital World War 1 LARPing” and you know what? Yeah. In the excitement, I found myself yelling “On to the next, chaps!” in spite of several things: No one was around who could hear me other than BlackMill Games’ CEO. I don’t think there were any actual players in my match, just bots. And also, I was playing an Aussie, not a stiff-lipped Tommy from the British Isles.
My time with WW1 Gallipoli was not nearly enough, but I am happy to say we did capture the full battlefield and won the match. Afterwards, I was shown one of the cool little touches in Gallipoli’s improvised grenades. The real things were made from tin cans stuffed with gunpowder and a fuse. In the game, each homemade hand grenade (can grenade?) has a different, entirely fictional label on it. It’s just another one of those little touches and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to fling explosive tins of haggis at my foes this summer when WW1 Gallipoli officially releases.
Seth Macy is Senior Social Commerce Producer, and just wants to be your friend. You can find him online most places at @SethFromMaine.
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