Theatre of War release imminent

[:FI:Moog]

Check it out: http://www.battlefront.com/products/tow/features.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Developer 1C Company and publisher Battlefront.com have announced that the wait for Theatre of War, formerly known under the working title WW2-RTS is almost at an end! After months of additional work and development using the combined expertise of the makers of IL-2 Sturmovik and the creators of the Combat Mission series, Theatre of War is nearly ready for the international release by Battlefront.com.

The amount of significant changes, tweaks, new game options and improvements that have gone in recently is staggering. Below is just a short list of the most important 20+ items that have been addressed in the past few months.

1. Visibility and engagement ranges have been substantially increased to realistic levels.

2. Hand to hand combat for infantry has been added (abstracted visually).

3. Restrictions to the use of captured vehicles and equipment has been added. Now only soldiers with suitable skills can use captured equipment.

4. Heavy artillery and light mortars were added as off-map support.

5. The infantry to armor ratio in all missions has been substantially increased.

6. Relative spotting indicators for each individual unit have been added.

7. The campaign has been changed to now allow advancement to the next mission despite defeat in a previous mission.

8. Fire on the move for vehicles with good enough crews has been implemented.

9. Delayed detonation and real-world physics for hand and anti-tank grenades have been added.

10. Enhanced physics modeling for all large caliber shells have been added.

11. Better burst duration modeling for automatic weapons added.

12. Infantry movement rates on various ground surfaces have been improved.

13. Realistic physics for vehicle movement (usage of gears, throttling etc) have been added.

14. Targeting for all units has been improved, it now depends more on target visibility, target movement status and firing mode.

15. Various tweaks to vehicles and equipment: model sizes, damage calculations etc.

16. Improved morale calculations.

17. New missions have been added.

18. Heavy air-bombers were removed from close air support role.

19. The delay for air and artillery support has been increased to realistic levels.

20. Unit path finding has been improved.

21. Recon airplanes added into the game.

22. Weather conditions and their effects on spotting, movement and combat have been improved.

23. Realistic Uniforms, Ranks, Names and numbering conventions for all nation's soldiers and vehicles have been implemented.

A comprehensive list of Game Features can be found here.

Martin van Balkom from Battlefront.com said: "You don't see every day that a publisher and developer decide to delay a game for a few months to make sure that the game lives up to the extremely high expectations! Theatre of War has been named as one of the ten most anticipated games for 2007 by several international gaming magazines, and thousands of fans are eagerly awaiting its release since it was first announced several years ago. We want to say thank you to the 1C developer team for the trust they placed in Battlefront's expertise with ground combat simulations and the dedication with which they carried out the countless tweaks, changes and suggestions from our teams. Theatre of War is not going to be the most realistic wargame out there because that's not the design goal; but it will stand head and shoulders above the rest of the WW2 RTS genre as being the game created by the combined talent of the same people who brought you the award-winning Combat Mission and IL-2 Sturmovik game series!"

A set of 70 screenshots from the current beta version have been released today. This new batch of pics showcases many of the new features listed above including longer engagement ranges, updated Line of Sight and Weapon Range indicators as well as the rebalancing of many of the battles to include more realistic amounts of infantry. The screenshots can be found here in the Media Gallery.

[:FI:Macca]

FINALLLLLY!!!! Thanks, Moog!!

I'ts been ages since they posted any news....

But good news can be late.

I'm glad that it is Battlefront not Codemasters who is going to b the publisher....Battlefront has proven it's professionalism with the Combat Mission series, hope to see ToW at least that well supported.

M

[:FI:Macca]

http://www.simhq.com/_land2/land_081a.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

!!!!