When it comes to Swedish studios, players today often think of the online cooperative TPS "The Division".

However, before that, it was a professional RTS company that created two distinctive brands: "Ground Control" ( ) and "World in Conflict" (World in Conflict). Among them, "World in Conflict" was released on September 18, 2007. "" combines the highlights of "Call of Duty" and "Battlefield", showing an amazing sense of performance, immersion and excitement in the form of RTS, and is hailed as a must-play by RTS enthusiasts. Today, ten years after the game was released, let us review the company's history along its glorious trajectory.

■ A blockbuster

The studio was founded in 1997. Its debut work was "Ground Control" released in early 2000. The plot is set on an alien planet in the 25th century. As the title says, unlike Relic's "Homeland", this work focuses on ground combat. , players can only control a small number of air force units such as reconnaissance planes, fighter jets, and bombers at most, and the bombardment section of large space battleships only stays in cutscenes.

The cover of Ground Control carries the tagline "A passionate blend of real-time action and strategy." However, games today are often classified as RTT (real-time tactics) close to "Command and Conquer" rather than RTS (real-time strategy) like "Command and Conquer". The reason is simple: gathering resources, building factories, producing units, etc. Traditional RTS elements were completely abandoned by "Ground Control".

Before the battle begins, players can choose their favorite combination of arms and abilities. However, most battle levels do not have reinforcements in the middle, and you can only rely on limited troops to complete the mission. However, in large battles, AI will send friendly troops to fight alongside you.

This game is divided into two camps: the Craven Group and the Knights of the Dawn. Craven uses heavy armor and gunpowder weapons and emphasizes positional warfare. The Knights use suspended vehicles and ion weapons and are good at mobile warfare. The two camps also have some special units, such as Craven's advanced infantry "Hunters" who are good at reconnaissance and sniping, and the Knights' "Templars" who are powerful anti-vehicle infantry.

Players can also customize the unit's special abilities and special weapons. The former includes night vision, acceleration, medical treatment, maintenance and other functions. The latter ranges from mortars to tactical nuclear bombs. It can be described as a dazzling array, allowing players to create a small-scale unit. But a well-rounded elite force.

The game adopts a squad structure, and commands such as movement and attack are based on squads. The system presets a large number of formations and response strategies. This game enables mutual damage between friendly forces by default, and a reasonable formation is crucial to the battle. After passing the level, the surviving team can gain experience points and improve their abilities. If there is only one survivor left in a team, the team's establishment will be automatically replenished after passing the level, and the experience points will be retained. However, if all team members are killed, the experience points will be lost. Just have to start over. The biggest problem with the campaign mode is that you cannot save in the middle of the level. Players need to be particularly careful in high difficulty, otherwise they will lose everything if they are not careful.

As a fully 3D game, the system of "Ground Control" also implements 3D thinking. "Ground Control" tanks have the highest frontal defense, while the side, tail, and top armor are relatively weak. The undulating terrain tests players' tactical thinking. Infantry can climb slopes that are difficult for vehicles to reach and attack the top of tanks. Highland units have advantages in vision, hit rate, and concealment, and valleys are not without their advantages. Self-propelled artillery can shoot from low to high, breaking through the default lower limit of range and attacking enemies that are otherwise out of reach.

The suppression system of "Ground Control" simulates a real-life firefight. Even if a unit is attacked, its hit rate and movement speed will be reduced even if it does not lose blood, allowing the wonderful tactic of "the rear team to fire and cover the retreat of the main force" to be used. The powerful suppression capability of artillery has also been reflected. The range of long-range artillery is greater than its own field of view, and it requires reconnaissance units to provide targets.

The game's 3D camera has a high degree of freedom. You can zoom in as close as possible to observe the details of the team, or you can pull back to the traditional bird's-eye view to take in the overall situation. In order to show off the dynamic light source, this game also provides a night battle map. Due to the long distance of troops fighting, the proportion of units in the bird's-eye view is very small. In addition, the highest resolution is only 1024×768, which puts a burden on the player's vision.

The game's landscape lacks content filling, with only a few buildings and trees for infantry to hide, and the scene looks a bit monotonous. Therefore, although the 3D engine of this game was good at the time, it was not yet at the top level. "Dark Reign 2" at the same time "The picture details are richer than that of "Ground Control".

The online battle features of this game are distinctive, including three modes: death match, king of the hill, and capture the flag. Players can interrupt the battle midway, which is quite FPS-like. However, since the player's reinforcement airdrop points are fixed in the battle mode, it is more likely to encounter door blocking than an FPS with multiple preset resurrection points. Homeowners can adjust basic options such as time limit, scores, advanced units, and damage range before the battle begins. However, there is no computer AI available. If you want to experience the fun of battle, you must find other players, which becomes a major flaw of this game.

"Ground Control" uses the network provided by the publisher Snow Mountain for online connection. Masterpieces using this network also include "Counter-Strike" (before version 1.6), "Homeland", "Dark Reign 2", etc. Since it was closed in 2008, Currently, the only ways to experience "Ground Control" online are through LAN and virtual LAN.

At the end of 2000, the expansion pack "Dark Conspiracy" of "Ground Control" was released. The development cycle of the expansion pack "Dark Conspiracy" was shortened from 3 years to 9 months, but it is still rich in content. The campaign has a total of 15 levels, which is equivalent to half the length of this article. The CG was produced by the professional company Blur. Due to its age, the accuracy cannot be compared with that of "Halo Wars", but it is obviously better than the video pre-rendered by the game engine in this article.

It's a pity that the plot of "Dark Conspiracy" was unfinished, the story ended abruptly at the climax, and the subsequent "Ground Control 2" did not complete the plot of this work.

"Dark Conspiracy" adds a third force, the "Phoenix Mercenary Group". Their units have specialized functions and poor individual combat effectiveness. They rely on quantity to make up for quality, and rely more on the coordination and complementarity of the units. In terms of design, the units of the mercenary group give people a patchwork feel, such as a mix and match of "suspended chassis + gunpowder weapons". The shape of the units also lacks recognition. From a long-distance bird's-eye view, it is easy to confuse players. .

The media's evaluation of "Dark Conspiracy" is obviously not as good as that of "Ground Control", but the response from players is acceptable, because the publisher Snow Mountain will distribute the expansion pack for free in the form of "increasing quantity without increasing price". The two-in-one "Ground Control Collection" ( ) directly replaces the original "Ground Control" on retailers' shelves at the same price, making it affordable for new players. Old players who have purchased the original "Ground Control" can pay $5 for shipping and have Snow Mountain mail an expansion pack.

As an upstart company that has made a name for itself with its 3D technology, the media and players often compare it to Relic. Of course, the two are not in a direct competitive relationship. The two companies are more like like-minded comrades. Since then, the new works of Relic and Relic have been in tandem and harmonious. While they are engaged in their own innovations, they have improved the concepts borrowed from each other and jointly promoted the development of RTS, creating a good story.

■ Keep up the good work

"Ground Control 2", the orthodox sequel that took three years of hard work, debuted in the summer of 2004. The engine specifications were upgraded from DX7 to DX9 in one go. The graphics were earth-shaking, reflecting the rapid advancement of technology, and making veteran players feel like they were in a trance. . It is not an exaggeration to claim that the graphics of "Ground Control 2" are comparable to FPS.The picture quality of this game is inferior to "Half-Life 2" and "Doom 3", but it is enough to compete with the similar style "Unreal Tournament 2004"

In addition to the significant improvement in model and texture accuracy, the game's particle effects have also been significantly enhanced. The infantry's ion rifle volleys are dazzling, and the long-range artillery streaking across the sky is even more exciting. The sky has a 3D dynamic effect, it is no longer a dry texture, and the alien atmosphere is vividly rendered. The art style is also brighter, and night battles no longer test the player's eyesight.

The dynamic weather system affects the vision, range and hit rate of the troops, adding more variables to the battle. As an RTS game, even from today's perspective, the graphics of "Ground Control 2" are still remarkable, and its technology has truly become a first-class game.

The battle of the second generation takes place more than three hundred years after the first generation, and the story does not have much continuity. The advancement of game engines allows more powerful scenes to be presented through real-time rendering, the performance effects are significantly improved, and the CG is more refined. The overall level of the plot of the second generation is higher than that of the first generation, but there are too many characters and the narrative rhythm is not smooth enough. The end of the game laid a lot of foreshadowing, but "Ground Control 3" is still a mirror image, and the story of the second generation has not been continued.

Players can operate two major camps: the human NSA (Northern Star Alliance) and the rugged alien race Viron. The second generation abandoned the forced squad system and allowed individual soldiers to be freely operated. Special weapons could not be selected and were replaced by a fixed "second mode switch".

For example, the NSA's light infantry's default weapon is a machine gun, and the second mode switches to rockets, which prevents free movement. Velen's unit not only has a second mode, but can also combine two units into a new unit and disintegrate back to its original form when necessary.

The biggest difference between "Ground Control 2" and the previous game is the point capture and reinforcement system. The map has multiple victory points and airlift points for all parties to occupy. As the name suggests, victory points are the key to victory. After occupation, they provide "resource points" similar to money. Players can use the points to transport reinforcements by air. In order to limit the human wave tactics, the more troops you have, the slower the point growth rate. You can allocate troops to other players or friendly forces controlled by AI to reduce the population. In addition to occupying points, players can also earn resource points by destroying enemies and completing phased mission objectives.

Resource points can not only call for reinforcements, but also upgrade transport aircraft or call for rear support. The transport aircraft in the default state is relatively fragile. Once destroyed, players will not be able to call for reinforcements for a short period of time. However, if you are willing to spend a lot of points on transport aircraft upgrades, you can get a flying fortress with powerful firepower and high maneuverability, which can be called the god of death in the air.

There are not many options for rear support. There are only radar scanning, bombs, smoke bombs, poison gas bombs, laser cannons and orbital airdrop infantry. The presence is weak. The release of "World in Conflict" 3 years later allowed the support system to be improved. .

In response to the problem of rudimentary terrain in the first generation, more vegetation and building areas were added in the second generation, further improving the status of infantry. The game's vegetation has changed from a few sparse trees in the previous game to a dense forest that cannot be entered by vehicles. Infantry can hide in it, launch an ambush, or call in air strikes, the choice is yours. Street fighting provides a large number of buildings. Infantry stationed in them can enhance defense, but they are still afraid of poison gas and flame weapons.

The street fighting system of the 2nd generation has many flaws. Players need to manually select the direction in which the infantry is stationed. However, not every building has four directions to choose from, which can easily cause confusion. Selecting all outdoor infantry on the screen will directly Indoor infantry are also included, leading to misoperations. These overly complicated settings will be reasonably simplified in "World in Conflict".

The campaign of "Ground Control 2" supports up to three players to cooperate to pass the level, and the battle adds the highly anticipated AI players. Similar to the campaign, the key to victory in the battle is still to capture points. The default 10 maps are indeed too few for an RTS. Fortunately, an editor is provided, and players can download a large number of self-made maps from the Internet.

"Ground Control 2" abandoned Snow Mountain and replaced it with its own service. This is an online platform similar to Blizzard's Battle Network, with more complete social functions than the previous game.

There is no doubt about the technical achievements of the game, the content is relatively substantial, and it has been well received by the media. However, the system is closer to a traditional RTS than an RTT, and is not as distinctive as the previous game. This is also a compromise for the mainstream market. Veteran players of the first generation have raised various doubts about the second generation. How to find a better balance between conservatism and innovation has become an issue before us.

■ Reach the pinnacle

Unexpectedly, the next game is not "Ground Control 3", but "World in Conflict", which is based on the war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The game is set in the fictional 1980s. The Cold War turned into a hot war. The Soviet army broke through the Berlin Wall and launched an attack on Western Europe. The US military responded to the call of NATO allies and transferred its main force to Europe to fight the Soviet army, leaving the United States empty of domestic troops. , encountered a sneak attack by the Soviet army.

Novelist Larry Bond was hired as a plot consultant. His debut novel was "Red Storm" in 1986. This novel about the war between the United States and the Soviet Union was co-written by Larry Bond and Tom Clancy. , became the main reason for hiring him.

The subject of Russia's attack on the United States is not new, even if we put aside novels and only talk about movies and games. Representative works include the 1984 movie "Red Dawn" (Red Dawn), the 2000 RTS "Red Alert 2", the 2009 Year's FPS "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" and so on. Therefore, 2007's "World in Conflict" is not the first game to talk about this topic, and naturally it is not the last. The key lies in how to make new ideas.

"World in Conflict" cleverly uses cinematic reverse order and narrative techniques to strengthen the performance, and the tone is much more serious than "Red Alert 2". It is admitted that the games they mainly refer to are not other RTS, but FPSs such as "Medal of Honor" and "Call of Duty". This kind of "little people and big background" framework is more suitable for describing an epic game than the usual global God's perspective of RTS. war.

In the levels of "World in Conflict", only a small number of tasks can allow players to become a turning point in the situation. Most levels are only a small part of the entire battle. Players mainly rely on the slideshow of the loading screen and character reading to obtain the overall situation. .

Giving up the whole and choosing parts does not mean that "World in Conflict" is an opportunistic game. After the layout is reduced, it can focus on various details. Not only soldiers are involved in the war, but also their families and ordinary civilians. Super graphics technology, coupled with realistic proportions and rich details, make the town scenes in the game extremely immersive.

Take the town of Waterfall in the middle of the battle as an example. Even though the Soviet army was pressing on the border, the residents of the town still did not forget to celebrate Christmas. Before the evacuation, they decorated lanterns and snowmen, which was full of the beauty of snow. The US military commander at the scene used the school to The blackboard in the classroom explains the mission briefing. Soon, the town will be reduced to ashes in the flames of war.

The most valuable thing is that "World in Conflict" does not follow the stereotype of thinking to shape the US military into a high-end template. Instead, it exposes all negative problems such as entrapment of friendly forces, accidental killing of civilians, and structural bureaucracy. What is displayed in front of players is not fearless rigid symbols, but living lives of flesh and blood. Because of this, when they overcome fear and perform heroic actions, they can naturally truly touch the hearts of players.

There are not many games that can sublimate the sense of immersion and immersion to this level, not to mention RTS, a genre that is not good at telling stories in the first place. The release of "World in Conflict" marks that RTS has reached a level of proficiency at the narrative level. .

The graphics of this game have once again achieved a qualitative leap, and the smoke effect is particularly shocking. The battlefield after a round of bombing can only be described as "blocking the sky and the sun." It seems that you can smell the smoke from across the screen. As one of the first DX10 games, "World in Conflict" supports volumetric lights and volumetric clouds, and the sky effect is a step above "Ground Control 2". The scenes and unit models are still comparable to FPS of the same period, and the details are also quite outstanding. For example, the transport aircraft automatically releases infrared interference bombs after entering the war zone, leaving a dazzling light in the sky.

If you have two monitors, you can enable dual-screen mode, with one screen showing the 2D strategic map and the other screen showing the 3D actual picture.

The system of "World in Conflict" combines the foundations of the two "Ground Control" games and further improves the details. The map of the campaign mode is larger, the number of friendly forces is larger, and the air support has been greatly strengthened. Therefore, even if the protagonist does not have many troops under his command, he can still feel the grandeur of the battlefield.

Players still need to capture or defend strongholds to pass the level, but the airlift point becomes a large airlift area close to the battle line, which is updated in real time with various battle conditions. The location of reinforcement landing is more flexible and is no longer directly linked to the capture point.

The "resource points" in "Ground Control 2" are divided into two categories: "support points" and "reinforcement points". The ability to support the rear has been greatly enhanced, with various types of artillery and bombs to choose from. Each type of bombing has different arrival speed, range and power.

Support points are mainly replenished by killing enemies. The higher the hit rate, the faster the points are restored, achieving a virtuous cycle and achieving "destroy upon discovery". This requires the player's detection and prediction capabilities, and blind bombardment Exploding it will only waste points. Players can also spend support points to call in paratroopers. Unlike conventional reinforcements supplemented by transport aircraft, these paratroopers are out of the airlift area and can be airdropped to any location. They also have independent authority to call for artillery fire. Using such good steel on the blade can get twice the result with half the effort. .

The unique reinforcement points are the biggest highlight of this system. Unlike "Ground Control 2", the reinforcement points in "World in Conflict" will not continue to grow. It is far from the traditional concept of money, and is more like the upper limit of the troop establishment. . As the two poles of the hourglass, reinforcement points and existing troops maintain an ebb and flow relationship.

Reinforcement points can be spent to call for troops. After the troops die, the corresponding reinforcement points are slowly recovered for players to call again. On the surface, the fallen troops will receive "full price compensation", and the players seem to have no losses, but just like the sand in the hourglass does not flow quickly, the recovery of reinforcement points also takes time, and the enemy can use heavy firepower to forcefully open a gap. , before our points are recovered, take advantage of the gap in troops to launch an advance and capture our key areas.

In order to avoid losing the defense line, players need to use various methods to keep their troops intact as much as possible. Tanks can be repaired, and dead infantry squads can be replenished by airdropping in place, eliminating the need to rely on the landing zone and eliminating the need to occupy the cooling time of the transport aircraft. In addition, troops that do not consume reinforcement points will not receive compensation after death, including paratroopers called for support, and a small number of units that are given away completely for free. Players need to be extra careful with these "external troops" and try to preserve their strength.

Of course, if you are not satisfied with the current combination of troops and do not care about losing experience points, you can consider directly recycling existing units into points. This method has miraculous effects in some levels. For example, in the penultimate level of the US military campaign "Before the Storm" (the Storm), the player's initial force is four amphibious combat vehicles and four anti-tank infantry squads. After destroying the defenders on the beach, the player can use the combat vehicles to All the troops and infantry were recovered and replaced by Apache helicopters. They used their firepower and mobility to use leapfrog tactics. They called a small number of paratroopers to directly occupy the stronghold through support, and fought a blitzkrieg with air-ground coordination to quickly pass the level.

The special weapons and abilities of the first generation of "Ground Control" return in "World of Conflict", but they cannot be freely selected. For example, the special abilities of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles are basically smoke grenades. Different from "Ground Control", the special weapons and abilities of "World in Conflict" only have a cooling time limit and no limit on the number of times they can be used. You don't need to worry about it at critical moments, just use it.

The judgment of weapons is more rigorous, and there will not be the embarrassing scene in "Ground Control 2" where bullets directly pass through the broken walls as if they were air.

Physical destruction is also a highlight of "World in Conflict", adding to the strategic nature. Vehicles can push down trees, but it is best not to do this unless necessary, otherwise it is easy to be caught off guard by infantry in the woods. Calling incendiary bombs to burn down a forest is a safer way to directly eliminate the infantry hiding in it. However, the game does not encourage players to destroy wantonly. If the battlefield is reduced to a scorched earth, our infantry will also lose their hiding place.

Similar options appear for town buildings. The private houses in "Ground Control 2" can improve the defense of infantry, but players can only kill the stationed infantry and cannot destroy the private houses themselves. This is not the case in "World in Conflict". Large-scale artillery fire and air strikes can easily affect civilian houses. If some buildings are not deliberately preserved, it will be difficult for our infantry to gain a foothold when the enemy counterattacks.After the battle, the originally beautiful towns were reduced to ruins, allowing players to intuitively feel the intensity and cruelty of the war.

The battle in "World in Conflict" still focuses on capturing points, but the fire support is far better than that in "Ground Control 2", so the pace of the battle is also faster. Players with a weak military strength can call in air strikes to instantly eliminate a large number of enemy troops. The support capabilities of the battle mode are more comprehensive than those of the campaign. In addition to paratroopers, you can also airdrop jeeps and light tanks at any location, and repair bridges.

Many settings of the game are imitated from the "Battlefield" series. Players need to choose one of the four commanders: infantry, armor, auxiliary, and helicopter. Each profession has its own exclusive heavy unit, and you can purchase light and medium-sized units from other professions. , but the price is more expensive. For example, infantry commanders cannot purchase heavy tanks and can purchase light and medium tanks, but the price is higher than armored commanders.

In games with 4 players or smaller, players can lift commander restrictions, increase the upper limit and recovery speed of reinforcement points, and keep the scene lively, but this is not an officially recommended game method. If you want to fully reflect the value of the four commanders performing their respective duties, it is best to choose a 16-person melee. This is the true form of online play in this game.

The three battle modes also have obvious traces of "Battlefield": in the occupation mode, the more control points occupied by one party, the higher the score; the raid mode is divided into two parties: the offensive and defensive parties. The defender owns all the control points at the beginning, and the offensive party The party needs to capture these points one by one before the time ends; the war tug-of-war mode is a tug-of-war, with several control points connected in a straight line, and they can move forward by occupying them all.Because the airlift point has been transformed into a vast airlift area with a higher degree of freedom, the "door blocking and killing" problem of the first generation of "Ground Control" has been alleviated in the game.

Compared with "Ground Control", the biggest setback in "World in Conflict" is the similarity of units. The abilities of various units in the three camps of the US military, Soviet army, and NATO coalition are basically the same, and the difference in data is not big. There is a suspicion of copying the game.

The US military's OH-6A "Pony", AH-1W "Super Cobra", and AH-64A "Apache" respectively correspond to three types of helicopters: light, medium and heavy. There is no problem with this move, but the Soviet army put the Mi-28 "Havoc" "Set as a medium-sized helicopter, the HP is lower than the heavy-duty Mi-24V "Hind", which becomes a problem, because the armor of the "Havoc" in reality is thicker than that of the "Hind", and the weight is almost the same.

The "Hind" in the game cannot transport infantry and has become a copy of the "Apache", completely failing to reflect its proper characteristics. Similar problems also appeared on the NATO coalition side. The light SA-341 "Baby Gazelle" and A-129 "Mongoose" became reskinned "Super Cobra" and "Apache" in the game, which made people laugh and cry. .

In addition, the concept of air superiority in this game is weak, and the only air units that players can directly control are helicopters. Fixed-wing aircraft such as transport planes, fighter jets, and bombers called in from the rear were reduced to 3D model animations that lacked judgment, completely ignoring anti-air firepower and coming and leaving as they pleased.

Therefore, many players jokingly call "World in Conflict" "Ground Control Prequel: The US-Soviet War", and they probably don't care about this, and even leave an Easter egg: the protagonist of the US military battle is named Parker, which seems to imply that this person is the "Ground Control" The ancestor of the protagonist Sarah Parker five hundred years ago. It was not until 2013, when Eugen's "War Game: Air-Land Battle" was released that players were able to experience the real Cold War air-land system confrontation in the game.

Of course, "World in Conflict" is not advertised as a game with a real setting. The style of this game is closer to Relic's "Company of Heroes", finding a balance between reality and exhilaration. "World in Conflict" is not perfect, but its highlights are so dazzling that it can completely cover up its shortcomings. Therefore, the media unanimously gave high scores and praised "World in Conflict" as the highest masterpiece. In the hearts of the majority of players, "World of Conflict" has also become a bright pearl, a treasure that every RTS enthusiast should not miss.

■ sunset

The 14 levels of the original "World in Conflict" were all American battles. In order to make up for this shortcoming, the expansion pack "Soviet Raid" ( ) was produced, and plans were made to port the game to the console platform. However, the merger plan of parent company Vivendi and Activision changed the fate, and Vivendi decided to put the production team up for sale. Eventually, the "World in Conflict" brand was sold to Ubisoft, and the rights to "Ground Control" were sold to the developer of "Sniper Elite", who announced plans for "Ground Control 3", but until today, 3 There is still no news from Liao.

The console version of "Soviet Assault" was cancelled, and the PC version was finally released, with only 6 levels in the campaign. The original US military level was mainly defensive, and even the offensive level was often trapped in a dilemma of being heavily surrounded. The Soviet campaign in the expansion pack was mainly offensive, and it was more refreshing for players to follow the large troops and continuously advance forward.

The game once again demonstrates its amazing performance skills, and there are many exciting scenes: the torrent of steel that swallows mountains and rivers passes through the Berlin Wall, combined with earth-shattering artillery and air strikes, launching an overwhelming offensive; at night under the illumination of the Northern Lights , six "Flower Pigeon" class large ground-effect aircraft missile salvos destroyed the NATO defense line on the beach in one fell swoop, carrying tanks to the Norwegian snowfields; the US armored group invaded the prisoner-of-war camp in the Soviet Union and launched a head-to-head showdown. Heavy artillery turned the vast frozen soil into a purgatory…

In terms of plot, it still maintains an impartial attitude and uses a more positive perspective to show the grassroots soldiers of the Soviet army without portraying them as monsters with facial makeup. The story of the expansion pack is more compact, and it successfully depicts many vivid characters in just 6 levels. The popularity of Soviet soldiers in the hearts of players is no less than that of the US military.

It is a pity that the story of the Soviet army ended hastily and ended with the US military on the timeline. The world war has not ended, but we may not see the real ending. The publisher Ubisoft has no intention of continuing to invest, and the series has come to an end. .

Ubisoft integrated the original "World in Conflict" and the expansion pack "Soviet Assault" into "World in Conflict: Complete Edition", intertwining the battles between the United States and the Soviet Union according to the same timeline, making the story more complete. The "Complete Edition" sold for $30 in 2009, which was considered a great value. The problem is that "Soviet Assault" is not given away to veteran players for free like "Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy". Users who have purchased the base game need to spend $20 to purchase a separate expansion pack.The media believed that the battle quality of "Soviet Assault" maintained a high level, but the price of $20 was not reasonable enough, which greatly affected the ratings and brought a regrettable end to the series.

In the following years, they worked on "Assassin's Creed: Revelations", "Far Cry 3" and other works. Ubisoft thought that their abilities were good and allowed them to take up the lead again and develop "The Division", once again demonstrating their technical prowess, but This time, the type of game is no longer RTS…

At the end of 2015, Ubisoft shut down the online system of "World in Conflict", but this year, players were revived in the form of private servers. In the past ten years, MOD authors have continued to maintain the vitality of this game and made up for many regrets of the original game.

In terms of popularity, among RTS manufacturers, it is naturally not as good as Westwood, Blizzard, and other wealthy predecessors, and it is also slightly inferior to its peers Relic and Eugen. However, the exploration made for RTS is still indelible. Today, even the reverse is true. Influenced Blizzard and other seniors.

"StarCraft 2" is an example. The campaign and cooperative modes increasingly emphasize the support of panel calls. The most obvious character is Nova. In the campaign DLC "Nova Covert Ops", players can customize the special weapons and abilities of each unit, which is quite similar to "Ground Control". In the cooperative mode, Nova controls a small but elite force and weakens the enemy through frequent air strikes. This rhythm is somewhat similar to "World in Conflict".

2007 is already the afterglow of the golden age of RTS. We can also play major new games such as "Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars", "Supreme Commander" and "World in Conflict", as well as "Age of Empires 3: Asian Dynasties" and " Company of Heroes: Resistance Front" and other excellent expansion packs.

Today, ten years later, the golden age of RTS has long gone. "Halo Wars 2", "Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 3", "Raid 4" and other sequels have shining signs, but they still cannot hide the limited cost and numerous bugs. Problem, the degree of completion is unsatisfactory.

Once upon a time, it was difficult to find water in a vast sea, but the RTS market is no longer what it used to be. Looking back ten years ago, we created an RTS epic that was comparable to "Call of Duty" and "Battlefield". Such a blood-vomiting work can only be described as rare in today's environment. If you are disappointed with the new RTS games in recent years, you may wish to buy a copy of "World in Conflict: Complete Edition" on the GOG platform and plunge into the steel torrent of the hot war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Even today, ten years later, it can still bring players the same shock as ten years ago.