A WW1 Game?

[stroopwafel]

I think a game about WW1 could definitely work. Maybe not in the generic COD/Battlefield style but those games are boring anyway. I mean, you could play as one of the many unfortunate souls drafted into the meat grinder of the trenches while, instead of marching forward to your death, trying to escape that hell in an action/survival-horror kind of game. Picture corpses raining down on you from above while desperately searching the dead bodies for a gas mask b/c the setting is being filled with green fog. Then when everyone is dead in the trenches it means the conclusion of the intro level and you enter a nearby town after evading sentries in the forest that were busy mopping up any remaining survivors. The game continues as you plan revenge on the officers responsible.

Yeah, it's not historically accurate but as a setting it could have all the dread and isolation you'd wish for. Espescially in like an open-world game set in Belgium as events and circumstances rapidly deteriorate. Just getting from point A to B will be nerve wrecking.

 

[gorfias]

It [M1] was still being used in limited numbers up until 1965

Great story about your Uncle, thanks!

Does look to have excellent game possibilities in a WWI game. Likely used in a WW2 game but there it was likely typical. I wonder if it was thought to be a crazy powerful invention in WW1.


I guess I need to look at, what was the oldest rifle used in WW1. Were people using anything similar to a Civil War single shot at a time sorta thing.

Very limited compared to today's great side arms:


Yikes. This thing needs to be cocked between shots:

 

[Albino Boo]

I guess I need to look at, what was the oldest rifle used in WW1. Were people using anything similar to a Civil War single shot at a time sorta thing.

Yikes. This thing needs to be cocked between shots:

Magazine feed bolt action rifles was the mainstay of most nations infantry weapons between the 1870s-1945. The weapon was perfect for the kind of long range fighting from that era. You be surprised of how much fire power was deliverable was from these kind of rifles. The pre WW1 British army had a technique know as a mad minute, used to describe scoring a minimum of 15 hits onto a 12" round target at 300 yards within one minute using a bolt-action rifle. The average score was around 25 and the record was 38. In skilled hands these weapons were very dangerous, the problem arise from that it takes a lot of time and training to get that good. You can get the same results much quicker with semi-autos and assault rifles.

 

[Strelok]

Honestly cant think of any game that the first world war had some significance I know ubisoft are making a game about world war one but I cant think of any its all WW2 and Nazis surely WW1 would make a great setting for a game that shows the horror of the war and the life in the trenches maybe a FPS or a strategy game.

Iron Storm An alternate history game where WWI never ended, it's really good, but dated, on GoG for $4.99.
http://www.gog.com/game/iron_storm

NecroVision and NecroVision: Lost Company Only the setting in WWI, it quickly takes a turn for the bizarre, there are Vampires and Vampire cities, a WWI tank inspired mech, and you get to fight a dragon in biplane, really what more could you ask for? They are both on Steam.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/7860/?snr=1_7_15__13
http://store.steampowered.com/app/46250/?snr=1_7_15__13

Darkest of DaysThe time traveling FPS, has a WWI part, I rather liked the game, had some great advanced PhysX.It's on Steam as well, kind of steep price for an old game $19.99.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/37700/?snr=1_7_15__13

Verdun Haven't played this yet, but it looks promising, still in early access on Steam. It's on my wishlist if it goes on sale for the Steam Winter sale I will pick it up.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/242860/?snr=1_7_15__13

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Does look to have excellent game possibilities in a WWI game. Likely used in a WW2 game but there it was likely typical. I wonder if it was thought to be a crazy powerful invention in WW1.

Unfortunately it'd be anachronistic. The M1 Garand wasn't even designed until 1928, and didn't enter service until the mid 1930's. So it's not one of the weapons that would overlap.

A Springfield M1903 bolt-action rifle would be more accurate, as it was used in both wars.


I'm not sure what the overall oldest infantry rifle used during WWI would be, but it wouldn't be anything like Civil War style firearms. For the United States though I think it was the Model 1891 Mosin Nagant. Russia had a deal with US companies like Remington to supply them with millions of Mosin Nagant rifles during an arms shortage, but failed to pay for a few hundred thousand of them. The US government bought the rifles that Russia failed to pay for, redesignated them as "US Rifle, 7.62mm, Model 1916" and used them to train infantrymen.

Unfortunately, the performance of a weapon in a game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (or most games, to be honest) isn't really indicative of its performance in real life. I'm not sure how the real-life Chinese Type-95 stacks up against other modern service rifles, but I know that generally speaking burst-fire and automatic fire are highly discouraged in actual combat (unless you're the squad's LMG operator providing suppressive fire). Many of the world's service rifles these days don't even feature burst or automatic fire, since they tend to consume ammunition a lot faster while also drastically reducing the operator's accuracy with each successive round fired.

And actually, bolt-action rifles like the Springfield M1903 that I mentioned earlier and the Gewehr 98 that you linked a video to are still in active service. They're sometimes used by designated marksmen, but much much more commonly by snipers. The United States Marine Corps, for example, have been using the bolt-action M-40 rifle since 1966 all the way up to today. They're typically considered to be more reliable and accurate at long ranges than their semi-automatic cousins.

 

[GonvilleBromhead]

There's a reason there really isn't a game about WWI. A big chunk of the war was spent in trenches, occasionally peeking out and getting instantly shot and then either A: dying, or B: slinking back into the trench. There really isn't much you can make a game of.

By that logic, a WWII game would be boring as you spend most of the time moving around the countryside in lorries, and modern warfare games would be focused around hanging around in Germany. War based games focus around the 5% (if that) of the time in combat, and I can't see why it wouldn't be any different - just as the decent CoD games focus around D-Day, the Bastogne, Bulge, etc. a WWI game could focus around Mons, Ypres, the Somme, Cambrai, the Gallipolli landings, Beersheba, the 100 days...could be very exciting.

The problem with a game stems from the public perception of the war, based on three things: First Day of the Somme (though the strategic and tactical issues were limited only to certain divisions, and were largely corrected by the second day of the Somme, and in some cases, the second wave), Third Ypres (in which the brand new British platoon assault tactics devised earlier in the year, which were otherwise highly successful, were rather scuppered by very unseasonable weather) and war poets (remember, for every Sassoon and Graves, there was an Adrian Carton de Wiart or Walter Cowan. Neither represent the average Tommy or even average officer).

 

[BearShark]

I feel like there could be some great flying/dogfighting games set during WWI.

 

[gorfias]

Does look to have excellent game possibilities in a WWI game. Likely used in a WW2 game but there it was likely typical. I wonder if it was thought to be a crazy powerful invention in WW1.

Unfortunately it'd be anachronistic. The M1 Garand wasn't even designed until 1928, and didn't enter service until the mid 1930's. So it's not one of the weapons that would overlap.

A Springfield M1903 bolt-action rifle would be more accurate, as it was used in both wars.


I'm not sure what the overall oldest infantry rifle used during WWI would be, but it wouldn't be anything like Civil War style firearms. For the United States though I think it was the Model 1891 Mosin Nagant. Russia had a deal with US companies like Remington to supply them with millions of Mosin Nagant rifles during an arms shortage, but failed to pay for a few hundred thousand of them. The US government bought the rifles that Russia failed to pay for, redesignated them as "US Rifle, 7.62mm, Model 1916" and used them to train infantrymen.

Unfortunately, the performance of a weapon in a game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (or most games, to be honest) isn't really indicative of its performance in real life. I'm not sure how the real-life Chinese Type-95 stacks up against other modern service rifles, but I know that generally speaking burst-fire and automatic fire are highly discouraged in actual combat (unless you're the squad's LMG operator providing suppressive fire). Many of the world's service rifles these days don't even feature burst or automatic fire, since they tend to consume ammunition a lot faster while also drastically reducing the operator's accuracy with each successive round fired.

And actually, bolt-action rifles like the Springfield M1903 that I mentioned earlier and the Gewehr 98 that you linked a video to are still in active service. They're sometimes used by designated marksmen, but much much more commonly by snipers. The United States Marine Corps, for example, have been using the bolt-action M-40 rifle since 1966 all the way up to today. They're typically considered to be more reliable and accurate at long ranges than their semi-automatic cousins.

Great video, thanks! I'm looking into this Model 1891 Mosin Nagant.