We decided about a year ago that we wanted to go back to the
Wacht am Rhein project once we were finished with the Normandy project for ArmA1. The Normandy project will be ported to ArmA2, which is our first priority, but once this is completed, little if any expanding of the project is expected.
The Ardennes offensive will take priority after that.
Traditionally, we have always focused on singleplayer (SP), with the hope that the mod would be as usable as possible in multiplayer (MP). However, due to improvements in internet connection speeds and changes in the gaming industry over the years,
multiplayer gaming has now become
our main focus. We will also make it possible for the campaign to be played in SP, but it will be orientated primarily towards MP.
We aim to create a
character driven storyline somewhat similar to that of BIS' "Razor" campaign (as far as time and technology permits anyway). The campaign is projected to consist of 4-7 Co-op missions, in which the player will be the
tank commander of a Waffen SS tank crew in the Kampfgruppe Peiper of the 1.SS "Leibstandarte" division (that's right, you'll be
playing as a German). We realize that this is a unit with a somewhat tainted reputation because of the actions of some of it's members during the battle of the Bulge. We will however continue to stand by our decision to include any symbols that were used (mostly the swastika and runes) to not detract from the realism. The missions will be small to medium-sized,
really large tank/combined arms battles are reserved for separate missions (SP and MP).
The decision to make a storyline from the Point-of-View (POV) of a Waffen-SS unit is the result of wanting to
break with traditional WW2 games and mods that always portray the Allied (mainly Anglo-American) POV (we are aware of Red Orchestra being an exception). Kampfgruppe Peiper was an elite force at the very center of the German attack in the Bulge comprising most of the 1. SS Leibstandarte division's panzers tasked with accomplishing missions
crucial to the progress of the entire offensive.
Campaigns in which the player is part of a tank crew have not often been done in mods for BIS games so far. We've never done a campaign before revolving around tanks due partially to the lack of realism in particularly armored vehicles, and a lack of resources (people and time) to attempt to overcome these
weak spots in the games. With the help of a group of people that have recently joined our team, who are dedicated to
making tanks as realistic as possible. Things like (but not limited to) suspension, gears, armor, ballistics, sounds etc will all be looked at and improved as much as possible, as well as remaking a lot of the tanks, the German ones in particular, which until now have been reworked OFP ports for the most part. We want to take out these aging relics and replace them with
brand new ones that use all of the
latest advances in graphics. Because of all of this we've decided that
tanks should be
in the spotlight in this campaign. Aircraft on the other hand will not be any real priority as they only really started playing an important part towards the end of the offensive, as well as any kind of naval presence obviously being highly doubtful at best.
When combined, those factors make representing a Waffen-SS tank crew in Kampfgruppe Peiper an interesting choice for us.
There will not be any recreation of war crimes, or actions pointing to any such things. Most soldiers of all nations, even many in the Waffen-SS, were just
fighting for their country without any political goals. This fight for survival is what we want to portray. The Waffen-SS as the
elite fighting force that it was."
We have a pretty large team with a good amount of model and texture artists (always looking for more talented people though), but two types of people that we could really use are
voice-actors (American-English and German) and missionmakers.
We have quite a few items already being worked on, but we have chosen
not to include screenshots for now, as these would mostly consist of high-poly variants used for "baking" normal maps, rendered in non-BIS applications, possibly giving people wrong impressions. The logo is a temporary fix aimed at attracting attention to this post. If you're reading this, we figure it worked