Blitzkrieg 2 Vies for the Title of Most Historically Accurate WWII Strategy Game

by Louis Bedigian

“In Blitzkrieg 2, nighttime is a time of deadly clashes with ambushes and fiery explosions that realistically illuminate the battlefield.”

The best part of a real-time strategy game: 

The best part, revised:

Truthfully the explosions are second to gameplay, but Blitzkrieg 2’s graphics are so spectacular it’s hard to resist talking about them. Besides, they couldn’t call it the most historically accurate WWII game if the effects were lacking. (Eye candy has an effect on that too.)

I could talk more about the graphics or proceed to tell you why this game is so exciting, but then I’d be keeping you from hearing what the developers (Elmar Grunenberg, Producer, and Mario Kroll, Director of PR and Marketing, North America / Associate Producer) have to say about it.

Blitzkrieg 2 focuses on new strategic opportunities.  What are they, and how do they expand the scope of the game?

CDV: We’ve expanded the game to include more campaigns, more units and more control over units to really give the player the ultimate in historical real-time strategy game.

As an example, by introducing air and naval units as player-controllable force complements, we’ve been able to create a compelling Pacific campaign. Rather than fighting huge battles, largely between armor as one would in the European theater, players can now experience island-based fighting with massive infantry clashes, supported by bombers and fighters swarming the sky. In these situations, you need to completely re-adjust your tactics.

We’ve also added a new experience system. The player’s alter ego will gain experience and be promoted within each campaign. As the player’s alter ego gets promoted, he or she gains promotion points that can be spent to assign more tactical battlefield commander to a category of unit, such as medium tanks or regular infantry.

Once assigned, all units of the category with an assigned battlefield commander will begin accruing battlefield experience, the tactical commander will earn promotions and ultimately that commander will be able to provide an edge in combat by providing units under his command with unique skills and abilities. For example, an anti-tank unit commander might provide all the units under his command with the ability to target enemy vehicle tracks, disabling tanks before or instead of destroying them. Depending on the style of play, different players will want to carefully calculate where they want to spend these promotion points: a player that prefers extensive air support probably wouldn’t benefit from maxing out the leadership of his light tanks.

We’ve also rounded out the way the game encourages game play in a generally historically accurate sequence when engaging the three massive single-player campaigns, but it also remains open ended enough to allow players to weight the tradeoffs for pursuing a campaign in a non-historical sequence of battles.

What other new additions can players expect?  Have any gameplay enhancements been made?

CDV: As I hinted at, another change in the gameplay is the player’s ability to choose the path he or she wishes to pursue through a campaign (and its sub-chapters).

The three campaigns – German, American and Russian – are divided into multiple chapters (usually representing one theater of war or major operation), each of which is further subdivided into missions, usually four basic missions and one final chapter per mission. The player can choose in which order to play those missions.

To get to the next chapter, the player needs to finish at least two missions per chapter, and then complete the final end-of-chapter challenge, which is typically much more difficult than the smaller missions. The game will recommend in which order to play the missions – by optimizing reinforcements and unit upgrade availability – but players don’t have to follow that recommendation.

Another big addition for the Blitzkrieg series are the night missions. While in some games night missions just mean that it’s harder to see, in Blitzkrieg 2, nighttime is a time of deadly clashes with ambushes and fiery explosions that realistically illuminate the battlefield. When traveling at night, you have to really stick to cover and protect your flanks from surprise attacks that might not occur during the daylight hours. 

Which aspect is the team focusing on the most for this sequel: gameplay, graphics, sound, or authenticity?

CDV: Not to sound wishy-washy on this one, but really, the team didn’t focus on any one specific item, rather, Nival (the developer) is simply concentrating on making the best and most historically-accurate WWII RTS possible, while still keeping the game attractive, accessible and, most importantly, fun to play. While we’ve been hammering the point home about the game’s historical accuracy, we didn’t skimp on upgrading the game’s graphics engine (which is beautiful) and boosting the sound engine, with units responding in their native languages.

Blitzkrieg 2's world is destructible, but how much destruction can be done?  How much does the world change as a result of your battles?

CDV: In Blitzkrieg 2, you can destroy almost anything. Tanks can roll over trees, fuel tanks and other smaller objects. While destroying some items clears a path for your units, they can also block the way or cause damage. For example, if you slam a tank into a fuel drum or fire on an enemy by an ammo dump, the collateral damage does damage to or even destroys enemy (and friendly) units nearby. Blow up a building with indiscriminant fire or level a town with your bombers, and your infantry will lack one location for cover and ambushing the enemy.

Blitzkrieg 2 uses an all-new engine.  We know this means improved graphics, but please explain, in detail, how much better this game will look and feel.

CDV: The game is a pretty significant shift graphically for the series. First off, it’s fully 3D, so you’ll be able to pan, tilt and zoom the camera like never before. The lighting engine is pretty amazing to see in action, too. Explosions make beautiful fires across the landscapes, and night missions are highlighted (pardon the pun) by unit headlights sweeping across the landscape as vehicles cross treacherous terrain, or by the glow of brewed up tanks.

In the original Blitzkrieg, the graphics were certainly no slouch, but now, you can really see all the nitty gritty animated details of things like artillery crews moving and unpacking their gear while the wreckage of their unfortunate target lies in a smoking heap. 

Players can control German, American and Russian commanders.  Are these spread out over different missions, or can players take on each mission with a different commander, thus creating a new perspective each time?

CDV: In single-player mode, the missions are different for each campaign, so you won’t be able to take on “Mission X” as the Americans, and then play it again from the German perspective unless that mission happens to be included from different perspectives by design.

But there are more than 60 single player missions, and one can create new ones with the included editor. In multi-player mode one can also play any of the ten or so maps from the perspective of any of the three playable nations.

Talk about the units: new ones, returning favorites, and what makes them special.

CDV: There’s a nearly complete list – we’re doling out a few every week – of all in-game units on our official CDV website, but suffice it to say we have approximately 300 different units included, roughly sixty of which are unique infantry types and subtypes. We’ve also included a few super weapons that one may come across in conquering the campaigns. I’d venture to say that a good portion of the better known and a few of the less common units found in World War II will be included, and there will be ample tactical diversity.

Blitzkrieg 2 has more than 60 single-player missions!  Could you describe one of your favorite missions for us?  What makes it exciting and challenging?

CDV: That’s a tough one. Each mission, and particularly each chapter, has its own flavor and so many of them are great. The German North Africa campaign is quite a bit of fun to play, even if it’s quite tough. The Pacific missions feel as if one is constantly being overwhelmed by masses of swarming tenacious Japanese infantry, much as I imagine the real battles felt.

I think one of my personal favorites, however, is one of the capture of France battles fairly early in the German campaign. You play with a computer-controlled ally and are trying to cross a major river and drive off the entrenched remnants of French resistance on the other side. It’s the first opportunity in that campaign to do massive damage with air support, but it also teaches the player that a direct frontal assault is absolutely lethal and ineffective in more cases than not. It’s quite a nail-biter and requires careful and considered application of very limited reinforcements and some solid combined arms application. 

How do the multiplayer missions work?  Are you battling with or against other players?

CDV: They are relatively fast-paced and are largely based around capturing and holding supply depots and bases located on strategically vital spots on the maps. Engineering units take on a greater importance in multi-player games, as many supply depots is start out or become damaged during the game, and only once they are repaired and restored to working condition, can they be used to launch reinforcements. We’ve had some amazing two on three multi-player sessions that truly challenged and entertained all concerned. I’d say they were a great opportunity to play a quick match, but they are so addictive, we ended up playing for hours.

How did the closed-beta test turn out?  Did it help with the game's development as much as you had hoped?

CDV: It really was a bit of a misnomer. What Nival hoped to achieve was really only to test, in a very limited situation, the reliability and capacity of its multi-player matchmaking service. The game held up very well. The downside to that is that some participants assumed the “beta” was a representative sample of the game, when really it only represented a very limited, single-map sampling of a multi-player session of Blitzkrieg 2, which is very different from what one should expect from the single player campaigns and even from the final multi-player map selection.

Thank you for your time.