Why Do First-Person Shooters Ignore World War I?
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Why Do First-Person Shooters Ignore World War I?

Verdun proves they shouldn't.

At least in terms of first-person shooters, World War II truly was the Good War, with dozens of games based on the Allies' campaigns in Africa, the Pacific, and the Eastern and Western fronts in Europe. World War I, meanwhile, is barely even mentioned in games. Verdun, a multiplayer first-person shooter developed by a core team of only three people, proves that doesn't have to be the case.

World War II had every kind of situation that makes for a great first-person shooter. It has the right mix of automatic weapons, vehicles, terrain, dynamic frontlines, and the perfect villains. The Medal of Honor first-person shooter series has 14 games set in WWII, the Call of Duty series has five, Brothers in Arms has three (not counting many more mobile games), and there are many other, lesser known imitators.

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Consider the invasion of Normandy, by far the most recreated battle in WWII first-person shooters. It started overnight with parachute and glider landings, continued with a beach landing best portrayed in the opening scene of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, and by the end of D-Day around 130,000 had a real foothold Nazi-controlled France.

Whether you're jumping out of a plane while searchlights and flak cannons light up the skies or flanking a machinegun nest on the Omaha beach, the level practically designs itself.

WWI, meanwhile, is known for years of suicidal charges at machine guns to gain only a few feet, and poison gas that killed thousands in their trenches before they had the chance to fight. With little room for heroes, and slower, more primitive weapons, developers largely ignore it.

Verdun, named after the deadliest battle of WWI, manages to recreate it while still being fun.

Image: Blackmill Games and M2H

Verdun's developer Blackmill Games read history books, pored over every color photo in existence, and used antique auction sites to get detailed images of weaponry. Jos Hoebe, one of Blackmill Games' co-founders, told me that he and his team also visited WWI battlefields in France, Belgium, including Verdun itself.

The battle in northeastern France between the German and French lasted 303 days and with anywhere between 700,000 to 1.2 million casualties (estimates have changed and been disputed over the years), it is easily one of the most costly in human history.

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"As you play the game you will notice that the individual life is easily lost, but as a collective, as a squad, you can win."

Hoebe said that even 100 years later, you can still find rifles, grenades, and human bones sticking out of the ground in Verdun.

"[WWI] is nuanced, with no real nazi-like villains, which makes it harder to create a compelling story that doesn't have fantasy elements like time travel or zombies," Hoebe said. "There's also less variation in weaponry, with most of them being bolt-action rifles, which in the age of '1001-unlocks' can be considered somewhat limiting."

Here Hoebe's referring to Call of Duty and Battlefield, where players unlock dozens of attachments per weapon. The consistent drip of rewards these unlocks provide is a big selling point, and WWI guns simply didn't have many accessories beyond a bayonet.

WWI battles are often thought to be monotonous compared to those of WWII, but Hoebe disagrees. "In reality, battles were as diverse as they were during the second World War," he said. "With Verdun we tried to bring this variation back in the level design and give an accurate portrayal of the battles, which is embedded deep into the gameplay on all levels."

One of the key differences between Verdun and other multiplayer shooters and what makes it distinctly WWI is its attack and counterattack flow of battle. Rather than letting players run amok around the level, teams take turns attacking and defending. If the attacking team sticks together, takes advantage of what little cover is scattered across the no man's land between the frontlines, and overwhelm the enemy trench, the defending team will have to fall back to another trench and try defending again. If the defending team manages to repel the attack, they'll get the chance to counterattack.

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"Taking a trench line meant that the enemy would counter attack, which was the cause of the horrible losses in the bigger picture, but it also allowed us to create symmetrical, unique gameplay that is as immersive to play as it is fitting to the theme," Hoebe said.

WWI saw the advent of small infantry tactics as we know them today, and unlike the chaotic action of Call of Duty, Verdun encourages disciplined teamwork that makes players follow orders. Players get more points for getting kills near their squad captain, which unlock skills that make the squad more powerful. If a squad works together, for example, officers can call in artillery strikes. Players also get more points for fulfilling their assigned roles. A gunner will get more points for laying down covering fire, while a bomber will get more points for using grenades.

"It forces people to work together in these small squads and we basically build the game around this idea," Hoebe said. "As you play the game you will notice that the individual life is easily lost, but as a collective, as a squad, you can win."

Image: Blackmill Games and M2H

Unlike any other multiplayer first-person shooter, Verdun allows players to level up their squad between battles, unlocking new weapons and uniforms. You'll start with a squad that's equipped with the German pickelhaube pointy helmets or red trousers for the French, and evolve into a late-in-the-war squad with camouflaged steel helmets, flamethrowers, and light machine guns.

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You'll see squads on the battlefield with equipment from different eras, but that's something that happened in the real WWI as well.

"As the transition of the warfare was changing rapidly a lot of times you would find different unit types in uniforms fighting side-by-side," Hoebe said. "It also a way for us to represent the dramatic change in warfare that occurred during 1914 - 1918 in a visual manner."

All the historical accuracy in the world wouldn't matter if Verdun wasn't fun to play. It is, but in a very different than WWII and modern day shooters, which probably helped it develop a following. Hoebe said that it was among the top sellers during the last summer sale on Steam, where it has almost 9,000 "very positive" reviews. It also sold 350,000 copies total through Steam alone.

They're not jumping out of airplanes or radically changing the frontlines of a World War in a day—WWI will never be the obvious subject of action movies and games—but they're having a different kind of fun, working together carefully to make incremental progress. And it's Verdun's detection to history that makes gaining only a few feet just as rewarding as taking over entire towns in Medal of Honor or Call of Duty.

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