why are there no WW1 games?

[Tarakos]

Because there was little fighting. All they did was hang out in their respective trenches and point their guns towards the MILES AND MILES of mines and barbed wire, otherwise known as No Man's Land. Besides, most guns were VERY semi-automatic and that wouldn't be a fluid game experience. All in all, World War 2 had more set pieces than its predecessor.

 

[suhlEap]

Because there was little fighting. All they did was hang out in their respective trenches and point their guns towards the MILES AND MILES of mines and barbed wire, otherwise known as No Man's Land. Besides, most guns were VERY semi-automatic and that wouldn't be a fluid game experience. All in all, World War 2 had more set pieces than its predecessor.

we've talked about that already in this thread. all wars have a lot of sitting around. it's inevitably a part of war. but games don't cover that part, they do the interesting parts... the fighting.

 

[The Tommy]

Because there was little fighting. All they did was hang out in their respective trenches and point their guns towards the MILES AND MILES of mines and barbed wire, otherwise known as No Man's Land. Besides, most guns were VERY semi-automatic and that wouldn't be a fluid game experience. All in all, World War 2 had more set pieces than its predecessor.

More rubbish of the "same old" sort. Try reading a little before posting.

 

[pilf]

There are a few of them, but it's a war most people would rather forget about.

It is a war that people shouyld never forget about, too many people died for it all to be simply forgotten.

I've occasionally wondered why there are so few games set during WW1, the war has the potential to be a good FPS. Trench warfare, open conflict and much later tanks.
I'd rather like to see a recreation of the Somme.

 

[The Tommy]

There are a few of them, but it's a war most people would rather forget about.

It is a war that people shouyld never forget about, too many people died for it all to be simply forgotten.

I've occasionally wondered why there are so few games set during WW1, the war has the potential to be a good FPS. Trench warfare, open conflict and much later tanks.
I'd rather like to see a recreation of the Somme.

Well put, especially about not forgetting the War. If anything it completes the story so many WWII fanatics only have a piece of.

 

[vorlors]

guns blew and i dont feel like waiting in a trench for hours only to get mowed down as soon as the rush begain

See what happens when you don't read previous posts... you miss out on some very cool gameplay ideas.

I read it it just I figger that blot action as a main weapon = one big sniper match giveing us shottys is good except you have to make your way across "no mans land " with mines gas morters mgs sniper's tank's ect. jump in a trench without geting mowed down then charge through many companys that are dug in to it.
the game would have to be very liner for most story dev . With the number of npcs it wold be hard to keep track of main npc allies related to the story also a yahtzee put it most gamer don't care or want to be attached to npcs . If you are to protect your trench from the hord's of axis
you would find yourself in very similar looking trench's . most of ww1 was spent in a stalemate . gamers of the fps genre like action not saying all but most,however ww1 rts might work. also the possablity of endings like that of alls quite on the western front (not gonna spoil it ) or on the lighter side pulling a orgain trail ( you died of trench foot) . Knowing that the industry runs on make game that with rake in the cash dev's no that no mater how many of them have been made if they put a new one out plp will buy it. They have been boiled down to cookie bcutter games where they just need a bit of polish and a new story and they have a "game" not saying this is right just saying this is how it works.
now this may seam like I'm a trolling but you asked why hasn't it be made not what are good reason's why they should be made as e much of this topic has come to be.
as for you bamboochkill don't assume that just becuse a small post fallows a large one that I did not go and read it.

 

[The Tommy]

guns blew and i dont feel like waiting in a trench for hours only to get mowed down as soon as the rush begain

See what happens when you don't read previous posts... you miss out on some very cool gameplay ideas.

the game would have to be very liner for most story dev . With the number of npcs it wold be hard to keep track of main npc allies related to the story also a yahtzee put it most gamer don't care or want to be attached to npcs . If you are to protect your trench from the hord's of axis

as for you bamboochkill don't assume that just becuse a small post fallows a large one that I did not go and read it.

I was the one that assumed you hadn't read the previous posts. and while you do have points about developers making money on sure fire ideas, I still think there would at least be somebody (most likely in Europe) willing to try.

BTW you must understand that while the war in the West was strategically static from 1915-17 you still had plenty of tactical action in villages, open fields and other half constructed ground works to make a decent FPS action. Not all weapons would be bolt action and if anything, melee combat would be a major priority.

BTW it was not the Axis powers in the Great War it was called the Central Powers. If anything the game would so really well in Canada Europe and Australia due to their histories in the War.

 

[nicholaxxx]

beacue the americans didn't suck in WWII so they choose to highlight that instead

 

[tsolless]

I would be very interested in a game leading a small group of Trench Raiders.

It would be interesting to recruit new soldiers as the members of your original squad die off but you are rewarded for having long surviving team mates on your squad in whatever way.

Planning an attack and then having to execute the plan that you laid would be fairly exciting in my opinion.

edit:

I would personally also try to put a spin on it that your character is trying to get out of the fighting. This could make the game very much the idea that war is hell and the soldiers don't like it. You could progress through the ranks to be taken out of the action or even try to desert.

This is just musing from how to reach the end game because just fighting WWI until Germany surrendered would be slightly boring and have no sort of climax. You would feel like you weren't achieving anything.

 

[WolfThomas]

Why is trench foot (and other diseases) always brought up about WW1? There are horrible diseases in every war, we don't get typhoid or malaria in a pacific game.

Also people got trench foot in the Napoleonic wars, WW2, Vietnam, the Falklands and wait for it...Glastonbury festival 2007. Its from having cold wet feet.

We play shooters like Call of Juarez, with slow firing guns, so do we suddenly despise the honest bolt action rifle, a disciplined and well trained soldier could fire five round rapid accurately in about four seconds.

Imagine this, its a few hours before dawn but very illuminated by the full moon, you and two other soldiers crawl up the side of a crater, you see German's placing heavy rolls of wire over the edge. The three of you pick a target and fire simultaneously before firing off the last 4 rounds rapidly and throwing crude grenades, this met with screams of anguish and surprise.

Without a moment to appreciate your work you fling youself back into the crater as machine gun fire rakes the top. Scrambling down the slop and wading through the water of the shell crater, you start to run stumblingly as you hear the "fwoop" of a mortar. You get out of the crater just as an explosion lands nearby.

You get separated from your two comrades who are hightailing it back to lines, when you dive into another artillery crater, this one filled with corpses from a previous attack. As you peer over the edge of the crater prone, a noise behind you makes you start to turn. One of the corpses isn't dead (rather he was hiding) and his hands are wrapped around your throat. Your rifle gets knocked out of your hands. You draw your revolver and pull the trigger, but with all the water and mud its doesn't fire. Rapidly, as the screen goes back, you click to slam the butt into his head. His fingers loosen and you realize once again you're the only living man in this crater.

That would be something to talk about around the water cooler.

This is just musing from how to reach the end game because just fighting WWI until Germany surrendered would be slightly boring and have no sort of climax. You would feel like you weren't achieving anything.

An interesting way to do it, you have a couple of particularly huge battles tanks and everything, along with repelling incredibly heavy German attacks. Then you have a about a week of ordinary days and as you come back from a raid or small scouting mission and get told the war's over.

It would totally out of the blue and unexpected, suddenly making anyone you killed or lost on that raid's death pointless. Abruptly as that you don't have to fight anymore, just like real life. You then have an interactive cut scene, where your marching down a road and every NPC whose still alive is telling you what they're gonna do when they get home.

A lot of people would probably complain though.

 

[Schizzy]

How is WWII any more glorious than WWI? And since when has that ever been the prerequisite of making a game off it? If Modern Warfare has taught us anything, is that war IS horrible no matter where or when it is (I refer to the nuke detonation).

As for pacing, who's to say that you can't time skip to the 'exciting bits' in WWI? Many WWII games time skip. Not every battle in WWII happened one after another. There were long pauses in between clashes.

You also have to ask yourself if you had enjoy Russian engagements of WWII. If you did, it'll almost be reminiscent of WWI trench warfare... minus the trenches. It was all long and bloody hopeless for the Russian conscripts. Russians lost literally thousands in a single engagement of only a few hours where trench warfare would take days.

The only argument that has any legs is that there were no real tangible villains like Hitler to hate in that conflict.

In terms of gameplay, everyone seems to be thinking that it'll suck as an FPS. But anyone who played Omaha Beach on any game would agree that portion of the game was at least pretty fun. Then why not WWI? Omaha Beach had all the bullets zipping around in what amounts to a hopeless situation, like WWI trench warfare, no?

But RTS could also be the way to go with WWI. Who knows? The next Total War could take place in WWI. Or Relic could take up the mantle.

Anyway, maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, I don't know, but I don't think a WWI scenario will necessarily be boring.

 

[Bamboochakill]

where have u been all the time?

 

[The Tommy]

I would be very interested in a game leading a small group of Trench Raiders.

It would be interesting to recruit new soldiers as the members of your original squad die off but you are rewarded for having long surviving team mates on your squad in whatever way.

Planning an attack and then having to execute the plan that you laid would be fairly exciting in my opinion.

edit:

I would personally also try to put a spin on it that your character is trying to get out of the fighting. This could make the game very much the idea that war is hell and the soldiers don't like it. You could progress through the ranks to be taken out of the action or even try to desert.

This is just musing from how to reach the end game because just fighting WWI until Germany surrendered would be slightly boring and have no sort of climax. You would feel like you weren't achieving anything.

The key to feeling a climatic closing would be to having an ending fight in a village where your actions in leading your squad can lead to a few different endings or just a shocking ending that ties together a story like that in Brothers in Arms.

 

[The Tommy]

How is WWII any more glorious than WWI? And since when has that ever been the prerequisite of making a game off it? If Modern Warfare has taught us anything, is that war IS horrible no matter where or when it is (I refer to the nuke detonation).

As for pacing, who's to say that you can't time skip to the 'exciting bits' in WWI? Many WWII games time skip. Not every battle in WWII happened one after another. There were long pauses in between clashes.

You also have to ask yourself if you had enjoy Russian engagements of WWII. If you did, it'll almost be reminiscent of WWI trench warfare... minus the trenches. It was all long and bloody hopeless for the Russian conscripts. Russians lost literally thousands in a single engagement of only a few hours where trench warfare would take days.

The only argument that has any legs is that there were no real tangible villains like Hitler to hate in that conflict.

In terms of gameplay, everyone seems to be thinking that it'll suck as an FPS. But anyone who played Omaha Beach on any game would agree that portion of the game was at least pretty fun. Then why not WWI? Omaha Beach had all the bullets zipping around in what amounts to a hopeless situation, like WWI trench warfare, no?

But RTS could also be the way to go with WWI. Who knows? The next Total War could take place in WWI. Or Relic could take up the mantle.

Anyway, maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, I don't know, but I don't think a WWI scenario will necessarily be boring.

All very excellent points, especially about the Russian COD campaigns. As I stated before, players loved the part in the first COD where you charged up the bank of the Volga and then through Red Square WITHOUT A BLOODY WEAPON AT ALL!! You just experienced the hell of a massed assault. And mind you not all Great War offensives were men just going over at 'walking pace.' That was almost unique to just one battle.

 

[Emphraim]

I can't remember the name of the battle, but a game version of it would go like this.

You fire idly across your trench at the enemy about 30 yards away, this has been going on for several weeks. A while passes and artillery begins to batter the enemy trenches, 6 days later the artillery clears, and now is your chance to take the enemy trench and make it all worth the hell so far!

But wait, what's this? Your commander is telling you to WALK through no-mans land or you'll be shot (As it's improper to run), suddenly the enemies machine guns are back on as you watch yourself get ripped to shreds along with all your nearby allies.

Credits roll saying 150,000 people or so died in that attack, the war dragged on for a few more years and your death was a pointless waste caused by incompetent command. You're also told that the enemy (A respectable sovereign nation much like your own) suffers so massively from their surrender terms that the war indirectly leads to the rise of the most evil power of modern times. Fighting this evil power also happens to destroy your own nations glorious empires rule, and paves the way for the previously isolationist crazies to replace you.

It doesn't quite have the punch of 'Kicking the evil nazi's ass! Fuck yeah!' WW2 had.

I would actually love that. Like as an 8-12 hour game, encapsulating everything you mentioned just there. Hours and literal hours of waiting, maybe attempting to play cards in little dugouts, reading letters from home. Perhaps a few defence actions against German assaults to give some taste of action every now and then, gas alarms sounding as you scramble for your mask. With RPG style and sandbox elements, you have certain quest like tasks that need to be completed each day (Picket duty, supply runs, courier work etc). You could talk to the men in your company, face inspections from haughty superiors, find out background information and etc as you are slowly moved up from the reserve trench to the front line. And the whole while tension is building up for this big allied assault, the propaganda gets thicker, and pride and patriotism return (its still kind of early in the war, so there was some of that still going around) and all the conversations become about how 'the hun' is going to cop a hiding in this sortie. Then in about, the last 30 minutes of the game, you wake up on the morning of the assault that the whole game has been building up to. You and your company take positions, ready to hop the sandbags, rifles unloaded (historically accurate, ammunition in rifles was thought to encourage men to go prone and start firing, rather than continuing the charge). Wait, let tension build that little bit more as artillery shells fall on enemy positions.

And then all of sudden, randomly get the order to go over. You jump up with patriotic vigor, ready to give the hun what-for. This is where the game becomes a complete bastard, and gives you multiple ways to finish. German machine gun and counter-shelling begin about half way across No Man's Land. It becomes very hard to stay alive. Falling shells and bullets won't usually kill you outright, but drop and give you a chance to crawl to your eventual demise Call of Duty 4 nuke style. Nothing will stop you from running back to own lines, or even refusing the order to charge in the first place. But do so, and a surviving officer will quickly arrange for your execution by firing squad, the price for cowardice (thats a legitimate way to complete the game) If you die here, its the end of the game. You've for all intents and purposes "won."

If you do manage to survive somehow, you watch your entire company wiped out as you move along. If you are incredibly skilled at dodging, or just plain lucky, you arrive at the German trench. Maybe a few of your mates have. Maybe its just you. You jump down ready to give the foreigners 6 inches of cold British steel, only to find an empty trench. German guns open up on their recently vacated lines. Rocks fall, everybody dies. You win.

Whichever way you finish the game, the credits you suggested roll.

It would definitely be a step away from the mainstream, but it'd sure pack one hell of an emotional punch.

That is an awesome idea. I would definitely play that game and I would get everyone I know to buy it too. It would be one of the few war games that aren't all about mindless fighting and the end wouldn't be the hero victory crap most games have.

 

[The Tommy]

I can't remember the name of the battle, but a game version of it would go like this.

That is an awesome idea. I would definitely play that game and I would get everyone I know to buy it too. It would be one of the few war games that aren't all about mindless fighting and the end wouldn't be the hero victory crap most games have.

If you liked that you should check some of the other ideas floating around on this topic. Lots to pick from considering how massive the conflict was. It would be a great place to put an epic storyline!!

 

[Emphraim]

I can't remember the name of the battle, but a game version of it would go like this.

That is an awesome idea. I would definitely play that game and I would get everyone I know to buy it too. It would be one of the few war games that aren't all about mindless fighting and the end wouldn't be the hero victory crap most games have.

If you liked that you should check some of the other ideas floating around on this topic. Lots to pick from considering how massive the conflict was. It would be a great place to put an epic storyline!!

Most of the ideas in this thread are very good and would make better games than some of the trash that comes out. Sadly, most developers seem to ignore WW1 since there is no clearly defined enemy like Hitler in WW2.

 

[The Tommy]

I can't remember the name of the battle, but a game version of it would go like this.

Most of the ideas in this thread are very good and would make better games than some of the trash that comes out. Sadly, most developers seem to ignore WW1 since there is no clearly defined enemy like Hitler in WW2.

That and because of the massive amounts of popular movies on the subject. But the 100th year anniversary's are coming so could be hope for a Euro dev to take the chance.

 

[Bamboochakill]

OH MY GOD, ONLY 14 DAYS LEFT TO DARKEST OF DAYS ARE RELLEASED, WICH HAVE EVENTS FROM THE ROME EMPIRE, THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR AND WW1!!!!!!!