Austerity – THC’s cantankerous Auster AOP.9 – was conducting one of her routine recce jaunts yesterday when she spotted a curlicue of fresh tank tracks in grid square CC. As this sector has been very quiet of late, she decided to investigate. The twin furrows crossed a couple of cornfields, snaked though a shelter belt, and skirted a village, before disappearing beneath the broad mud-clogged caterpillars of a stationary King Tiger. Said KT was parked at this obscure but intriguing Steam site.
Slitherine didn’t do a great job of third-dimensioning Close Combat. Can Sword of Steel do better? The small team making upcoming WW2 RTT Battlefield Commander WWII are big Close Combat fans which bodes well. Initially focused on recreating late-war Eastern Front action (other eras and fronts are planned) BCWW2 will differ from its main touchstones, CC2 and CC3, in at least two important respects. In addition to that unfettered camera, it seems we’ll also be able to task individual soldiers within squads if we wish to.
Although urban maps and building interiors don’t feature in any of the screenshots, they are planned for the initial release. Details on the dynamic campaign are scarce at present. Core unit carry-over is a given, surely, but it’s unclear whether Sword of Steel have CC4+-style strat maps in mind, or something more linear.
What can we expect from the ballistics modelling? Will the AI be any good? The demo due in November should answer those vital questions pretty definitively.
A dynamic campaign sounds enticing, and destructible buildings might be nice (how is it that nobody’s done that as well as Silent Storm in all the years since).
Definitely one to watch, and hopefully individual soldier commands wont be mandatory – zooming in to view the fine detail is great, having to manage it less so.
Hmm. Imagine a company level combat simulator where you have to tighten and relax individual soldiers’ muscles to make them move, turn, aim and shoot.
The destruction in Silent Storm looked and felt sooooo good!
But I think I’d cringe about grenades knocking down brick walls in 10*10 meters zone now.
I’d cringe and then I’d throw another grenade cackling like a maniac