Introduction

Sporting a name similar to our own is Wargaming.net, a small game developer responsible for the upcoming Massive Assault, a real-time strategy game set in a post-apocalyptic Risk world. The Wargamer's Jason Robinson sat down with President and Lead Game Designer Victor Kislyi to learn more about this military strategic title.

The Interview

The Wargamer: This project and your company are apparent newcomers to the PC gaming industry. Can you tell us the history behind this project, the company and the team behind it?

Victor Kislyi: Wargaming.net was introduced to the strategy gaming world in early 2000, when DBA Online was released. Before the work on DBA Online started, it had been a group of enthusiasts making amateur board and computer wargames. We recently launched our corporate web site with detailed info about the company and its background at the official web site.

As for Massive Assault, it had a prototype created in 1995 - almost a perfect tabletop wargame which then was computerized for MS DOS and later for Windows 95. During all these years the Secret Allies concept behind the game proved to be solid and fruitful, providing literally endless replayability - so that we decided to combine it with a modern high-performance 3D engine plus nicely crafted terrain, unit and effect graphics and to equip it with acknowledged DBA Online's multiplayer server technology to produce a high-end modern wargame.

WG: What about Massive Assault makes it stand out from the dozens of other strategy games out there? What existing games do you consider your peers?

VC: The concept, of course the rules and the concept. The model of Secret Allies, Guerrilla, Revenue and Indemnity as it is implemented in Massive Assault do not have the exact historic precedence - in some sense we have sacrificed historic accuracy for the sake of gameplay, replayability and fun. It may be uncommon for classic wargames, but that's what we dared to make, and, as the Concept Test results show - the idea has worked out - the players just liked it a lot. Plus fascinating 3D graphics. We created the 3D engine specially for Massive Assault - so that it can handle both low-camera views, demonstrating highly detailed terrain and vehicles, and bird-eye views of large battle areas covered with hundreds of units.

The engine is also capable of showing deep panorama views with the picturesque skies and the mountains (our 3D modelers have done fantastic job), so that one respected gaming magazine has labeled our early screenshots by: "Strategy gaming has never been so sweet!"

We did not try to make Massive Assault looking as any of the existing games, neither we used other games' ideas. However, we have already heard a couple of flattering comparisons from the Concept Testers and at some discussion forums: Total Annihilation, Risk, Battle Isle, and even Command & Conquer: Generals.