I think it is fair to say that Red Orchestra has the Eastern Front Tactical First Person Shooter market sewn up for the foreseeable future. Even if it sucks, who will have the energy left in the post RO hype hangover to get excited about another game focusing on the Eastern Front? Not I for certain.

However what I can get excited about is Resistance and Liberation, the next big WW2 shooter that claims to raise the bar on Tactical Realism. Built on the HL2 engine, RnL will focus on the Western Front - specifically Normandy, and even more specifically, the battles fought by the 82nd Airborne division. I’m a total sucker for any game focusing on the American Airborne in Normandy, but the thing that really caught my eye with this game is the developer’s claim that they are building a WW2 Infantry Simulation.

Our approach in recreating such events is quite different than that of most standard first person games. The principal of our focus is on realism. The realism we are referring to is beyond that of Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat. Just to list a few details, the following items are being implemented.

• No crosshair
• Weight and intertia added to weaponry
• Full balistics added to weaponry
• No HUD
• No death messages
• Revised score display
• An advanced damage system

You don’t think this is hardcore Tactical Realism yet? Think again:

We’re going to the extreme here and taking out a scoreboard. Instead, players will be shown a recap of the map objectives and which force was victorious. The idea here is to promote more teamplay. Players shouldn’t be focused on who got the most kills, but how their team is performing as a whole. As a member of an Airborne unit, your personal objective is to assist in the unit’s objective.

After reading the features for RnL, the only thing preventing me from drooling all over the keyboard is the disbelief that anyone will actually play this game besides me and about five other people I know. Get the full jaw dropping feature set here.