I came up with this idea a few days ago and Ive been building on ever since. Imagine a game set in a dystopian 1984-esque present where a sprawling mega-industrial London serves as the capitol of a small overworked island nation at war with a democratic nation who seeks to liberate its people. However, London's booming industry production has kept the invaders at bay, though victory still lies on a razors edge.
You play as 2 brothers, Robert and Jacob Ashford, who were twins born to a working class family who were conscripted into the war at age 17. The tutorial takes place at bootcamp, where the brothers are trained in one of three separate divisions of ground forces, soldiers, agents and officers, which form the 3 classes of the game.
Soldiers have the capabilities of utilizing all weapons and have expertise in creating bombs and other explosive weaponry, hijacking vehicles and obtaining the best mercenary contracts.
Agents specialize in stealth and have access to sniper rifles and SMGs as well as the ability to roam more freely in the environment, utilize sub-lethal attacks and hack computers.
Officers are the best at coercion and deception, and can only utilize a pistol for combat. They rely on bribing, tricking and blackmailing to get things done, and can interrogate captured combatants for information.
Your first choice is what 2 classes you wish to play as, and this changes the entire scope of the game. The military strictly forbids brothers serving in the same unit so you cannot double up on classes. The tutorial ends with you taking part in a crucial battle against the enemy in which the two brothers receive war-hero status by their acts of bravery. The soldier types get it by rushing the front lines and combat a massive enemy charge single-handed. The agent types receive it my infiltrating the enemy camp and assassinating the enemy general. And the Officers get it by giving a rousing speech on the brink of defeat which inspires the troops and turns the tide of battle and send the enemy into retreat.
Upon returning home, they find that their family has been taken in the night by the secret police, and after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt by a team of hired goons, they resolve to bring down the autocrat and save the people who suffer under its reign.
This is where the real game starts, you start off looking for a place to serve as headquarters of you underground movement. The overhead objective is different depending on you class choice.
Soldier/Agents have to stay out of the spotlight and rely on assassinations, bombings and robbery to fund and gain intel on the current dictator. Soldiers will serve as chief suppliers of bombs as well as distraction forces during high profile assassinations, which are carried out by agents. The governmental setup is that in the case of the current leader dying or stepping down the parliament gains temporary power. Your goal will be to ensure that the parliament is stocked with delegates willing to end the war and submit more rights to the people, as well as eventually assassinate the dictator once said conditions are met.
Soldier/Officers main goal will be to bring about the end of the war through sabotage, espionage and sale of military secrets. Your goal will be to cripple the Oceanic war machine through sabotage of military equipment with your soldier and utilizing your officers shrewd negotiation skills to obtain contracts from the opposing nations as well as sell secrets to them. Victory is met when the enemy army reaches your capitol city and liberates it from the oppressive government.
Agent/Officers gain goal is to spark a civil revolt against the government through propaganda, extortion, media publicity and "Robin Hood" tactics. Missions will include surveillance and heists performed by agents while officers utilize said surveillance to extort officials and serve as a philanthropic propaganda lord to gain thew support of the people. Victory is met when a combination of mob-financing, public support and corrupt police force culminates in a regime changing uprising.
The gameplay will play out in third person shooter viewpoint with an extensive inventory and RPG style perk system. Money will be a major resource, although it is only obtainable through missions, to ensure that it remains valuable. The RPG aspects come from experts and additions you add to your group as well as outside help from extortion and bribery. Ammo and Magazines are going to be entirely inventory based, where reloading your magazine does not save all the bullets remaining (you get all your ammo from partially used magazines in between missions) and you must buy/collect magazines and ammo during/between missions. Materials for bombs, lockpicks, specialty ammo, first aid supplies and such are found in levels, with some missions designed specifically for raiding supply caches.
You will never be playing both brothers at once, the only time you will be controlling both at once is during interrogations where you can play "good cop bad cop" or during surprise assassination attempts where you must work together to escape.
Usually you will control one brother as he provides cover for the other one's operation, and the game is to buy as much time as possible. Once that has finished you switch roles and the amount of time you bought becomes your new time limit for the task at hand.
One of the major RPG elements is the ability to call in favors from previous missions, say for example you have a mission to infiltrate a police station and plant a bug in the chiefs office to blackmail him. In an earlier mission you helped a local baker ward off some racketeers and in return he has offered to make a special delivery of pastries to the local police station laced with sedatives, which will ensure more of the officers are asleep when you arrive. You can hire bums to get in a fight outside to distract the door guard. You can plant a mole in the power plant who will cut power to that block at your signal for a short time, making it easier to bypass alarm systems. You can have your brother stage a high profile bank robbery to temporarily clean out the station. You can use your brothers celebrity as a cover and plant the bug as he tours the station for a photo op.
Weaponry and technology will be of the late 80s, and you will have equippable armor slots to customize both your appearance and playing style. You can buy combat vests for massive ammo capacity and grenade slots, but at the cost of being incredibly noticeable. Wearing a combat helmet will reduce headshot damage against you but slow down your aim. Equipping a boot-knife makes your melee strike much faster but increases the sound made by your footsteps. Wearing certain clothing while making underground television broadcasts will make some people more keen to you while it may be off-putting for others.
This is still a work in progress, and I have no experience in programming so I really would just like to see a studio pick up an idea like this as I would really like to play this.