why are there no WW1 games?

[Vern]

Because the Prussians, with their handlebar mustaches and spiked helmets don't look as cool as Nazi storm troopers. And really, what symbolizes the battle between good and evil more than the Allies against the Axis? An alliance of people who wanted to eradicate all undesirable elements from their society based on race, religion, sexual preference, and mental faculties, and who also loved raping and killing Chinese civilians, versus people who wanted to stop the expansion of the former. World War II is about as clear cut as you can get about who was right and who was wrong, and it was an exciting time as far as technological advances. WWI had no genocide, it had no occult obsessed aggressor with a funny mustache, it didn't effect nearly as much of the world, and Warner Brothers never made a cartoon about it. Also, the end effect of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles kind of kicked off the whole German Nationalist movement is a bit of a sore spot. In the end WWI, while extremely important, was nowhere near as important, or as rife with various videogame plotlines as WWII was. And let's face it, there's no group aside from Aliens and Robots that's as globally acceptable to kill in videogams as Nazis.

 

[timmytom1]

A better question is why arent there any Korean war games? Or for that matter there should be a game set during the "troubles" of ireland and england, it could be like a splinter cell meets COD4.

There is one korean war game , but i played that going on 5 years ago and it was shit so the name escapes me

 

[Harry Bosch]

I reckon the reason is primarily due to the American market. Americans don?t like this war, don?t ask me why maybe it was their lack of involvement until the last year, tricky domestic issues involving German and Irish migrants or they just don?t see it as an ?American Hero? war. It?s sad really that this sort of thing affects what stories are told in video games, but then again America has been Hi-jacking history for years.

As for the ?Trench warfare is boring? argument, that?s just madness. No videogame based on war has ever gone for 100% realism, it would be unplayable. The trench warfare segment would be part of story probably involving more varied landscapes. Think of the Medal of honour series, that in no way represents what the average solider went through in that war, but that?s the point of a video game you don?t play an average solider you play the hero who does the cool stuff. You could even go another way and think of return to castle Wolfenstien not representative of any war ever and contained the two bad guys that it?s always ok to kill. Nazis and monsters. Maybe that?s why WW2 is more Popular, in those games you shoot Nazis while in a WW1 game you would be shooting Germans. No group is pure evil the other is just people.

Also world war two has so many amazing stories that would work, the start of dog fights, Chemical weapons, The Sarajevo assassination or the 36th Ulster Division at the Battle of the Somme. However I must concede my knowledge of WW1 is not amazing but I reckon a good game is in there.

The thing I never understood was why a game based on the exploits of the SAS in WW2 has never been released, heck the exploits of the SAS in general would make a brilliant videogame. They have been so involved in History and the one of the guys who created the regiment, Blair Mayne, was such an interesting character. Nstead we are forced to play the same gung ho American story over and over.

But that?s just my thoughts.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Because of the trenchfest that it was and World War games are not funny.

 

[Harry Bosch]

In fact Tarantino's new movie is a little similar to the role the SAS carried out in the dessert except far more stylised with snappier dialogue. They where so successful in this role that Hitler threw a fit a decreed his Commando order.

All great for a game or movie.

 

[johnman]

but you would get to drive the first tank ><

Then fix it as it broke down every 5 minutes and zoom around at its top speed of 5 mph before getting stuck in a trench.

And it would an incredibly Linear and frustrating game, walk along trench, go over top of trench, get mown down, quickload repeat.

 

[Vrex360]

You know what I have no bloody idea, but you know what I want one now.
I'm sick of having to be the 'glorious patriotic heroic Americans' now I want to play as the ANZAC's fighting Johnny Turk.
I'm an Australian, I'd love to see more games portray our war history for once instead of just wank off America's.

 

[MercenaryCanary]

we all know there are many (many) games set in world war 2, and yet there aren't any set in world war 1, and i wonder why this is!

Because there were no heroes in WWI, everybody died horrifically?

The red baron!!!

The canadian "Red Baron" was Billy Bishop

I thought the "Red Baron" was with the Germans.

 

[johnman]

This may come off as racist or offensive to some of you but if you attempt to ignore it then you are the reason. AMERICA WAS NOT IN WWI!
I am canadian, and every remembrance day we remember the one who died in world war 1 and world war 2, meanwhile american will only remember the ones in world war 2. WW2 from the american stand point was scene as a heroic battle, thats why there are a lot of WW2 games and not world war 1. Eternal darkness had a world war 1 chapter in it but Eternal darkness was canadian developed. to those who said trench warfare wouldn't be interesting it is compete bull shit. Imagine fighting the from your trench and the our NPC sergeant gives a whistle and you must run over the top to the other side, hiding in craters and behind rubble from your enemies gun fire and every chance you get you attempt to take out the enemy gunners, I would say it would be as good if not the better then a D-Day scenario. Also there was not just trench warfare. There was the russian campaigns. Let us face it the american are the mainstream of the entertainment industry and what they want is what they get. This is why there will not be a world war 1 game or a vietnam game because those are scene by americans as "bad wars" but the truth is no war is a good war. ( also I think the online for this would be amazing)

listen, asshole, the US was in WWI, we didnt want to be but you little pussies couldnt defeat germany by yourselves and we had to do it for you, and did it again in WWII, so dont make uninformed claims about this, just because the US isnt very popular now doesnt mean you can go around smearing its reputation and claiming it wasnt in conflicts that AMERICANS DIED IN BY THE THOUSANDS. What would you know about fighting? Canada barely has a military and the US could steamroll you and you know it. The US remembers both, its called Veterans day. WWII was more recent, and Vietnam is even more, WWII was the last war that the US won a clean, decisive victiory, im not shaming the troops who fought, im just saying that the politicians wouldnt let the military guys win.

Canada was in both world wars for much longer than the US and gave just as much. They had an entire beach to themselves on D-day so before you start shouting about how the US gave its all, learn some facts. I agree america did suffer in the first world war, more than they should of as they had learned nothing from the 4 years of trench warfare that had gone before hand. The most important roll the US played in ww1 was supplying the allied powers with money and eqiupment, and crushing german morale when they finally got troops over.
And what the fuck is the "the US could steamroll you and you know it!!" got to do with anything? Are we now back to the school ground argument "My armys bigger than yours!!"?

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

A WWI game from the Canadian perspective would be interesting.

I second this out of interest, Canada does seem to be rather ambiguous when it comes to war games. Same for we Brits actually, until CoD4.

I think they (who exactly is 'they' anyway?) should make a game that focuses on the special forces you don't hear so much about, like Delta Force, or Kommando Spezialkrafte, or 17º Stormo Incursori.

 

[The Madman]

True, much of World War 1 was trench warfare, but far from all of it! The amount of ignorance on the topic is astounding.

Personally I would LOVE a game which let me charge forward as the Australian light cavalry in the battle of Beersheba. It's the stuff of legends the way they charged forward straight through the worst that the defenders could throw at them, and it represents one of the last and one of the most dramatic horse charge in military history. Fitting way to end!


Or my personal favorite for obvious reasons of patriotism; the battle of Vimy Ridge, in which Canadian soldiers working together for the first time as a concentrated Canadian military, managed to take a German position which both the British and French had tried and fail to take in the past.

 

[Korolev]

Because no modern military tactics or vehicles were implemented/invented. WW1 was a mix between old style "march your soldiers in a big line towards the enemy bank" and modern warfare. Essentially, unlike WW2 games, where you are in a squad and have to fight through the environment on your own, taking down objectives, calling for air support or riding in tanks or behind tanks, attacking from multiple directions, WW1 involves your commanding officer saying "stand up chap, time go over the hill while being impossibly weighed down by the gear we've ordered you to carry, while I stay here sipping tea. You'll get shot in no time, I'll be here developing trench foot, and 21,000 other soldiers can die to move the line a few meters forward. BRAVO, I say, BRAVO"

World war one was during the time when commanders still stupidly thought that human wave attacks across open plains were effective.

Not only that - the guns were crap as hell. Bolt action rifles for the most part, no assault rifles at all.

And in the end - WW1 was pointless. It was an absolutely arbitrary, pointless, stupid war that lead to the rise of Nazi Germany and helped the Bolsheviks get hold of Russia during the October Revolution. Millions died for no good reason, other than the fact that major european powers wanted to have their massive dick-waving contest. Most of the battles were brutal, pointless and extremely wasteful, and to have to play that sort of thing would be worse than having to learn about it.

 

[Korolev]

Oh and also - nobody really knows much about it anymore. Everyone knows about Stalingrad and Normandy - but no one knows much, or cares much about, the battles of WW1, since that occured before good cameras with sound capturing capabilities were deployed. As a result, not many people knew much about the frontline, and it also came about before movies started being a big industry. Essentially, it's just too old to remain in the public consciousness, and it had less grand battles, and less was at stake than in WW2. So not many movies have been made about WW1, and so, not many games will be made about WW1.

However, WW1 did lead to the development of tanks (crap tanks, but tanks nonetheless) and modern day infantry tactics, with the German's developing their "storming-troops" during this period of war. So the last few months of WW1 might have been a bit interesting. But most of it was wasteful, terrible and pointless.

 

[Steelfists]

I think a Falklands war game would work really well. You'd have infantry, jet, helicopter and naval combat. It could be like a persistent campaign.

 

[(whitty name here)]

we all know there are many (many) games set in world war 2, and yet there aren't any set in world war 1, and i wonder why this is!

Because there were no heroes in WWI, everybody died horrifically?

The red baron!!!

The canadian "Red Baron" was Billy Bishop

I thought the "Red Baron" was with the Germans.

No the Red Baron was the German air ace. I'm saying the canadian equivalent of the Red Baron was Billy Bishop

 

[veloper]

Dog fighting in WW1 aircraft is the only interesting thing you can do with a WW1 game.
This has already been done before. Somebody mentioned Red Baron earlier.

 

[sonidraw]

They still used cavalry in WWI. And yes, soldiers marched and stayed in formation during battle too. WWI was really a major turning point in technology, but tactics and strategy was a step behind the technology, which led to the stagnant mass-death that it was.

Edit: On the other hand, early air combat could be interesting. Oh, and the RTS-style I mentioned earlier. First person shooter style is a no-no, though.

 

[guess who]

I could see a very good game where every mission you are a new soldier with your own objective like "grenade the machine gun" or "clear the trenches with the first flamethrower" or something like that before you die. You don't play as a single normal infantry man but rather one person with a special objective every mission because you died last mission, a WWI game would be good if it played to the gritty realism.

 

[Nomad]

WWII was so big because so many countries teamed up against an evil, all-powerful nation ruled by a madman. It's easy to mold a story out of a hero fighting against the cruel SS soldiers. Personally I can't even say I know many of the details on WWI, but EVERYONE knows about Nazis.

This guy pretty much nailed it. The first part, anyway. WW2 is an easy scenario to center on for the player to be able to go around feeling like a superhero, since there's a universal agreement that the nazis were evil and ate babies for breakfast. In WW1, pretty much everyone were equally belligerent and evil. It was a war that started out of boredom and civil unrest more than anything else, resulting in a chain reaction that brought in more and more bored and unruly nations.

In WW1 there was no clear badguy. In WW2 we have the... "axis of evil", heh. That's the reason more than anything else. And as someone else said, WW2 was better documented, hence the increased focus there as well. For obvious reasons, there's a whole lot less authentic video footage from WW1 than from WW2, for example.

I'd like a WW1 game, though. I'm getting so sick of the whole nazi-nagging. They were evil. We get it already. That said, WW2 is also better for an FPS as someone said... But I can't see why you couldn't make a strategy game, for example like Hearts of Iron 2 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_iron_2], set in WW1.

Edit: Changed "PC" to "player", to avoid confusion.

 

[Reyce]

Actually if you think about a WW1 game would be easy to make no hard graphics for no mans land and stuff.

Also if the tactics of the time where to be believed the gameplay would consist of defending against of a wave of men while you have a 30 cal machine gun and then attacking with a wave of men towards a 30 cal machine gun.

some early posts also commented on weapons but some of weapons used in WW1 were still used during WW2 so they wouldn't actually be that bad.