Heroes & Generals isn't a game. It’s two games. At least, that’s what the developers at Reto-Moto are aiming for. In one game you enter a battle as an FPS ‘hero’ while in the other you direct resources and army divisions as a strategy game ‘general’. Although it all comes in one package, the idea is that what happens in one world will ultimately affect the other. For example, moving a division of light armour to a nearby battle on the general’s map will cause tanks to appear for the players fighting on the ground. It’s not quite as simple as that, obviously, and there are a lot of requirements for things to go the way you want them when playing as a general but that’s the central idea.
]]>UPDATE: Having some odd issues with the key dispenser, looking into it.
Impressive multiplayer World War II project Heroes & Generals has reached its "hey, everyone, let's beta test" stage, and we'd suggest you take a look. Reto-Moto have been working like heroes (and generals) for years and months to get this game into the state it is now, which is pretty impressive. You'll glimpse a bit of that by taking a look at the video below, or indeed grabbing a key from here and playing it for yourself.
And here's some information about the latest build of the game.
]]>The current IO Interactive may not be developing the next Hitman game but some of the studio's founders didn't work on Absolution either - they've been working on multilayered multiplayer WWII FPS Heroes & Generals at their new company Reto-Moto. I don't play many multiplayer games and I wish I could take back the few hours I spent with Guild Wars 2 and spend them cycling through a war instead. It's the strategic component that primarily interests me, the large-scale European conflict that the Generals prod at, but I don't spend much time as a soldier in my gaming life and having the greater purpose of the greater war beyond the battlefield might provide enough purpose to engage me. Latest vid below.
]]>Publishing games is weird right now. Heroes & Generals - the very impressive-looking multi-layered soldier multiplayer from reto-moto - was recently snapped up by Square Enix as something for them to publish. Two months after it successfully made its way through Steam Greenlight. Which is just plain odd. It's like finding out Proctor & Gamble raised some money through a cake sale. Although, in fairness, the chronology was reversed. Either way, it's hopefully good news for developers Reto-Moto, who have just released a new trailer.
]]>The saga of Steam Greenlight has, thus far, been packed with unexpected surprises, whiplash-inducing twists, and sudden bursts of lava-like sensuality. Unfortunately, hardly any of it has been related to actual, you know, games. Instead, Greenlight itself and its (in some cases, not-so-well-explained) policies have hogged the spotlight, with Valve doing its best to tweak and modify the system as it goes along. Now, though, the first batch of community-tested, Valve-approved games is getting its chance to shine. Also, one of them is Half-Life.
]]>There's a bunch of fascination things going on in Heroes & Generals, which I now know about because John, Adam, and Jim have all posted excitedly about it. That's a lot of the RPS contingent excited about what appears to be a multiplayer WW2 FPS. What gives? It manages to excite and innovate with its strategic elements, bicycles, and, according to this developer diary, single-player missions.
]]>The only game I've actually played today has an '@' where you might expect to see a person, not even bothering to trot down to uncanny avenue, and yet I find myself posting a second video with actual human beings in it, running around and doing things, ambulating and acting. This trailer feels like a call to arms as Heroes & Generals looks to expand its beta community and although live action advertisements for digital playgrounds should rightly be pelted with vials of furious wasps this is an enjoyably silly example. There's a part when some people pretend to be a tank and that's always good to see. When I play (soon), it'll be mostly for the bikes and...well, watch to the very end.
]]>Promising-looking persistent World War II shooter Heroes & Generals - which offers a hybrid of FPS action and strategic play - is now taking sign ups for its closed beta. It's an ambitious-looking title, not least because of the way the strategy side of the game is being handled as an over-arching meta-game - there's even going to be a mobile app that will allow generals to move their resources around in the persistent map part of the game while on the move. It's a bold concept, one step beyond what we've seen from this kind of hybrid previously. Have a gander at the video below for some elucidation on that count.
]]>The dynamic, strategic multiplayer European campaign at the heart of Heroes & Generals ensures that scripted events aren't necessary, but let's pretend the headline is at least vaguely appropriate. John provided millions of details on how the first person shooting, cycling and strategising will work together, but if you refuse to believe a word that comes out of his keyboard you could watch the developer diary below instead. Campaign selection, faction choice and spawning are all covered, as are the number of graphics being added as development progresses, and the uses for purchasable credits.
]]>First-person shooter meets strategy is a confusing concept. But having seen how Heroes & Generals plays, it's one that just might work. It's World War 2, it's Axis vs. Allies, and it's going to take months to win.
]]>Heroes & Generals is looking more and more like a game I'd like to play, mostly because it looks like fun but also to form a better understanding of how its campaign will work, overlaid on FPS battles as it is. The game is from Reto-Moto, the new home of the creators of Hitman, and its persistent world offers players a chance to cooperate and approach missions however they see fit. I expect there will be a lot of shooting, some stealth, the odd explosion and some vehicular tomfoolery. What I didn't expect is that the tomfoolery would incorporate bicycles. There is plenty of information in the four developer diaries below but it's the bicycles in the fourth that I recommend you pay particular attention to.
]]>Here, before your eyes, is the world's first interview (if you ignore a Danish one from a few years ago) with the Hitman creators' re-formed Reto-Moto, in which they discuss their recently re-announced game, Heroes & Generals. I'll admit that seeing the in-game alpha footage yesterday, I sighed at what looked like yet another WW2 FPS. But I've since learned that the game is a lot more than that. It's a persistent, massively multiplayed game, combining traditional on-ground soldier FPS battles with strategic resource and equipment management from the tents. To find out just how that works, I spoke to Jacob Andersen, game director for Reto (and original artist on all the previous Hitman games). He talks about the game's persistent world, how the strategic elements of the General roles work, and what lessons have been learned from their days at IO.
]]>Having been away on my honeymoon for nearly two weeks, and thus not paying much attention to videogames, I'm feeling out of touch. But I'm not sure that can account for my not having realised that a group of ex-IO Interactive founders left the company in 2004 to restart their old development team, Reto-Moto. The company was officially re-announced in 2008, and only now, forty-seven years later, have they offered footage of their first game. It's called Heroes & Generals, and I'm having some trouble working out exactly when it was announced. Eurogamer are calling it as today. Wikipedia suggests (without proof) that it was September 2010. But then the game's forum seems to have been alive as early as May 2010. Oh, and there were in-game shots in April 2010. But what's important today is there's now footage. Well, there has been since the 7th October, apparently. But I was on holiday.
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