Can Honor be Reborn?  Choose Your Destiny in “Rebirth of Honor”

by Louis Bedigian

 

“I wanted Rebirth of Honor to be the most realistic fiction possible. There are unrealistic events, but that's why ROH's story is embedded in a flight simulation and not on a ground war and political simulator.”

 

 

When designing the perfect war game, it’s not always easy to decide which elements should be added and which elements should be left out.

 

“Bullets, lots and lots of bullets.”

 

“Good work Johnson.  Fitzgerald, what do you have?”

 

“Well Mr. CEO, I think we should have over 333 missions.”

 

“I like it!  Get to work on it right away.”

 

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

 

“Jimmy, why are you crying?”

 

“I haven’t slept in three days.”

 

“How come?”

 

“Because every time I close my eyes I think about the 800 plane and 150 pilot skins we’ve added.”

 

But in the end it’s all worth it.  At least it is for the developers of Rebirth of Honor, a simulation war game that hopes to bring honor to the genre. 

 

 

 

Martin Dierkes, President of PlusWave Expansions by MDi Design, is also the Writer and Developer of Rebirth of Honor.  Who better than he to tell us all about this explosive flight combat simulator?  

Rebirth of Honor (ROH) deals with the consequences, good or bad, of a simple act.   

 

Martin Dierkes: In history, simple acts which seemed to change the course of history were always only the signs which showed much greater hidden developments. (Like the tip of an iceberg, or ‘Boston Tea Party’ in the USA.)

 

There were more than forty attempts on Hitler’s life. Although none [were] successful, this showed that there was a minority of people in Germany and a part of the officer’s corps who wanted the tyrant dead.

 

ROH deals with the hypothetical situation of what could have happened if an assassination by a group of officers would have been successful. There are so many hypothetical questions here.

Would the officers have been able to win political power in Germany? Could the war [have] been ended?

 

In ROH, I wanted to show ways how a new political government could, perhaps, lead the course of the war to a different outcome. Don’t understand me wrong, in ROH, Germany doesn’t win the war. I believe that the USSR alone was able to beat Germany. There was never the chance to win the war, but perhaps there was a chance to end the war earlier.

 

Do the decisions we make during the game alter the final outcome in any way?

 

MD: ROH is a scripted campaign. It’s like playing through a book or playing a movie. You have as many opportunities for your own decisions to affect the course of the war like real fighter pilots had in WWII: Not many.

 

You don’t affect the outcome of the war. You take the role of a normal man who discovers more and more about a secret truth. The player takes the role of a typical, normal German of the time. Although not a National Socialist, he likes Hitler for the achievements of reversing the embarrassment for Germany caused by the Versailles Treaty and  for beating France. In 1941, Hitler was very popular. Germany had won a great war against it's arch enemy with ease, or so it seemed. Most people believed, that the Jews and enemies of the State, were 'concentrated' in the concentration camps and they still believed, wrongly, but they did believe, that Germany handled it's occupations with relative humanity.

 

Of course there were rumors and stories, but this is how the player's character thinks, along with the majority at the time. But then, in the course of the campaign, the player starts to come into contact with many of the men, who, in reality, tried to kill Hitler in 1944. First he doesn't want to believe that Hitler has knowledge of  those inhuman actions whose facts he had to accept (Typical for the belief of many Germans at that time: ' if only the Fuhrer knew what was going on here, he surely would end it') In ROH, Hitler dies in mid 1942 by an accident, or so  it seems. Playing ROH, your character learns what really happened. He learns that he was involved in the whole affair without his knowledge. He learns that some of his best friends are involved in something dark and secret. Only at the end, the player has a real opportunity for an important decision. Until then, it's more like an investigation. It’s like being in a detective novel. As he learns more, the player's character evolves. 

 

Bombs away! 

 

Are the in-game videos based on real events or real footage captured during the war?

 

MD: Yes and no. The in-game videos tell the story together with the briefings. When the war against the USSR starts, an in-game video shows the first shots at the front. But private feelings and events are shown in the videos too. When the player meets important people or learns something very important, in-game videos show this. Before he first is asked to fly out a captured enemy fighter, an in-game video shows how a Soviet Fighter Pilot  is forced to land behind the German lines and is being taken prisoner. There are over 300 minutes of videos in ROH.

What kind of research was involved in creating a game of this stature?

 

MD: At first: Historical, technical, political data etc. I own a huge book collection about WWII and I have read them all. Even very rare books containing unknown analyses produced by the US Armed Forces after the war. Many writings about the political course too. I own the full war diary from the OKW and rare map material. From them I was able to research the detailed front position and local battles , or the weather situation on particular days. At that stage, the campaign is playing around specific battles and events directly taken from the war diary. Until Hitler's death, the campaign follows extremely closely the real events of WWII. Then the fiction starts.

 

Often I thought about writing a fiction novel about the story underlying ROH.

In my short military career, I come from the tank branch of the German Bundeswehr in the late 70’s / early 80’s. During my short 2-year military service, I made it to a Platoon Leader in a tank battalion. 

Generally, I garnered a very detailed knowledge of military strategic, operational and tactical knowledge and political history from the times since the Sumerian (Sorry, I am not sure of the word in English) and Egyptian cultures on up until today. But my main focus of interest has been on the 20th century.

 

I wanted ROH to be the most realistic fiction possible ;-) There are unrealistic events, but that's why ROH's story is embedded in a flight simulation and not on a ground war and political simulator. But even if the overall idea of an event is not very realistic, (because it should have to do with planes,) the details are kept plausible and realistic. 

 
Rebirth of Honor contains more than 800 plane and over 150 pilot skins. How many different planes are actually in the game?

 

MD: ROH contains IL-2 AEP planes.

 

I took 'the hardware' which was offered by IL-2. But the planes of your own “Staffel” (Squadron) all look different. The same type, but different paint and markings. I wanted the player to be able to recognize the different actors. You can see, even if an enemy’s plane is flown by an outstanding pilot.

 

ROH is a campaign expansion. I wasn’t able to implement new planes into the game.

The player is mostly flying the Bf-109- series, but he gets the opportunity to jump into other types of cockpits. The story reflects this, because the player takes on the role of a former test pilot.

 

If you look, on the way to your target, on your flight's other planes, you see different ones. This gives you the feeling that you are flying with comrades, not with computer generated copies of one and the same plane. Every 109 of your “Staffel” wears it's own camouflage pattern, slightly different from any other plane. When you receive a new Bf-109 version, it looks new. With time you can see how your plane ages. With time the best of your comrades are allowed to paint a small personal insignia on the side of the fuselage. You see the kill markings on the planes. Even your own plane's kill markings reflect your progress in the campaign.  Other than in the regular IL-2, ROH  shows realistic randomly combined planes with randomly combined numbers. In ROH your flight can consist four Bf-109s with the fuselage numbers 3, 11, 8, 13. The better pilots of your “Staffel” have their own typical planes. And you can see it. If IL-2 would give the numbers automatically, your flight would always show unrealistic numbers like 1,2,3,4. With time, you get to know who's plane is wearing the black 4: it's your best friend Oberleutnant Eulenberg. 

 

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something horribly wrong with these planes.

“Could it be flame igniting from the tail?”

You know what?  That’s probably what it is. 

 

There are 333 connected missions, correct?  That sounds like an awful lot!  How in-depth are these missions - what are your primary objectives?

 

MD: There are more missions. But 333 sounds so nice ;-)

 

With the implementation of AEP, I built more missions using the new plane types. All in all, ROH gives you at least 150 hours of game play.

 

My primary objective was to create the feeling, the atmosphere. The feedback I got here in Germany so far is telling me that I have achieved my goal. I want the player to really feel the situations. Missions at quiet times are very much different from missions during big operations. When the war is not really hot, the briefings are longer, telling longer parts of the story, of the continuation of the war. The missions are longer, fights are not so intense. When a major operation starts, I wanted to give the player a realistic feeling of exhaustion. Things act quickly. The opponent is more dangerous. Difficult to get an overview. Many missions a day. The player often has to deal with surprises. Things are chaotic. Friends are in danger, you have to save them. Enemy planes incoming… scramble…ground troops need air support….you must act now! etc...

 

A great influence on the level of this atmosphere are the airfields and ground targets. This is the 'world' I created wherein the  player interacts. IL-2's basic airfields etc. are very naked. The airfields in ROH look much different. Alive. I wanted the player to feel at home. Imagine if you came back from an exhausting mission and you all you saw was a naked strip. Or imagine you come back to an island of life. Trucks, camouflage nets, parked planes etc., etc. I invested a lot of work and effort in creating a realistic 'world.’ I did, what a good book author does: describing the 'world.’ I did it by creating and placing objects into it. 

Are there any secondary objective?  Anything that you have to do or can choose to do in addition to the main goal?

 

MD: There are NO created objectives at all! In reality “Jagdflieger “(fighter pilots) got  orders with an objective. That’s what the player gets in ROH during the briefings. But in reality the “Jagdflieger” never got the opportunity to re-fly his mission if he died or was shot down. That’s what I wanted the player to deal with as well.

 

The main objective is: Come home in one piece. All other things are secondary. There are many missions where the better decision is to call for help or to flee from the enemy. ROH is not a “50 kills with 80 lost planes and 25 lost lives”- campaign. When I played it through during the end of the tests, I made 282 kills with 17 planes lost and 5 deaths.

I want the player to be careful and cautious. Perhaps you can make many more kills, but the real challenge is to save your life. That’s realistic!

 

I didn’t make use of the IL-2 objective system. Often there are more than 150 ground objects in the target area for a fighter- bomber mission. If the player wouldn’t have destroyed the right one from these 150, he would have to re-fly the mission until he kills the right object. Not very realistic! Imagine: In an air battle you meet over 25 enemy planes. How could you know which one you must destroy to solve the mission? No, I want the player to feel free what to do and what not. I hate the re-fly button! If  had to bail out, I go to the next mission in anger. That's realistic.

 

The player does not make good days out of bad days. That would be too arcade. 

 

Apparently you have to land the plane to be safe in this game! 

The game also has 38 missions over 14 zones of operations on the Eastern Front.  Tell us about this.  Is it separate from the rest of the game?

 

MD: That’s not really correct.  The player's “Staffel” is assigned to 38 different front airfields during the course of the campaign. These operations play in 14 different theatres of operations. And these are only the front missions. There are some missions behind the front, where the player is occasionally transferred to, to meet other actors, to test planes, to help in the development of new plane versions, to teach comrades how to fly a MIG, or to defend Berlin from British bombers, for example.

 

Although not counted as separate theatres, these things are not separate from the campaign and mostly an important part of the story.

 

One of the coolest features is being able to fly enemy aircraft.  Does the game capture the aircraft on its own, or this is a mission the player must win?
 

MD: No, the player doesn't capture planes. It’s a part of the story.

 

Before his assignment to a “Jagdstaffel” (Fighter squadron) the player's character was a test pilot for the Fieseler Aircraft Company in Kassel. There he flew many different plane types. It's showed in an in-game video.

 

During the campaign, occasionally, enemy planes are found intact on invaded enemy airfields or somewhere in the surrounding areas. Then the player is asked if he is able and willing to fly the foreign plane out. I can tell you, that he is always willing ;-)

 

The player often flies the group’s He-111 too, or he shall take off with a captured enemy plane right out of a city on a wide down-hill avenue. Or a Sturmovik shall be flown out right at the front  under artillery fire. And there are some other unorthodox occasions, for example when the player flies a captured but unarmed Russian P-40 for a photo reconnaissance mission deep behind the enemy lines, right in the neighborhood of a number of grim Soviet fighters. (Of course you can see the small camera window on the side of the modified P-40) 

 

Yep, this confirms it.  Once you take off, there’s no going back. 

 

What are the advantages of your enemy's aircraft?  Sneak attacks?
 

MD: The general advantage of the Soviet fighters is their superior maneuverability. At the begin of the campaign, the player is in the fighter’s school, he learns how to fight these planes with the Bf-109. An in-game video shows that and a few school missions let him train that. The player has to make use of boom and zoom tactics at it’s best. Often you meet two enemy planes flown by rookies but then, after a little time, more enemy fighters come to the fight lead by an ace. If you haven’t kept your energy at a high level, you’re dead meat.

 

I want the player to keep this danger in mind. If he killed enemy fighters three times without a problem, it can be that he is bounced by a superior number of enemy fighters on the forth occasion. I want the player to be careful and a low and slow Soviet Fighter at is a deadly opponent.

 

Fly, boom and zoom, even if you don’t think that it’s really necessary. Situations change quickly. Not always, but often when you don't expect it.

 

It’s not so easy to build challenging missions against AI-flown planes. For ROH I have built around 450 missions. Some missions were porked. I don't know why. But when the tests showed that they were still unsatisfying even after a few modifications, I deleted them- Basta! (Enough!)  The enemy flights still vary quite a bit in AI-quality. There are campaigns out there, where you meet with a flight of two Bf-109’s, a dozen or so rookie- AI enemies. Not so in ROH. Enemy flights consist of different AI-levels. You shouldn't know what you have to deal with. When I encountered missions, during my tests, where I, as the player, shot down more than 2 planes, I changed the mission-balance. When I was shot down two times in two tests, I changed the balance. You shall be able to survive, but you shouldn't be able to make more kills than Erich Hartmann in the whole campaign.

 
How are the rescue missions accomplished?  Do we land, pick up our comrades, then take head for home?

 

MD: An example: You took part in a fighter leader’s conference for the whole afternoon, when you were called and told, that your best comrade, Oberleutnant Eulenberg was forced to crash land behind the enemy lines. His wingman said, that enemy ground troops are on the way to take him prisoner. Eulenberg landed on a high plateau which isn’t so easy to be reached by the Russians. You should have enough time to take the He-111 to get him out. But weather is bad and the sun is setting.

 

You start with the bomber and fly very low through river valleys to cross the front unharmed by the enemy AA placed on the mountains. Enemy MG fire is trying to hit you when you cross the front. High up, over you, two Bf-109’s are securing your flight. Then you reach the plateau. You search for Eulenberg’s 109 crash site and finally find it. The enemy troops are near and are firing at you shortly before your landing. In the meantime, your escort is fighting against enemy fighters to keep you safe. You turn the He around and take off, again, shot at by the closing enemy ground troops and you fly Eulenberg home, hopefully unharmed.

 

Thank you for your time.