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Red Orchestra: Ostfront

	Author: Oleg Maštruko Article Type: PC Game Review Publication Date: 4/6/2006 Developer: Tripwire Interactive Related Categories: World War II, Ground Combat, First Person Shooter, Eastern Front

Thinking Man's Shooter

The very fact that Red Orchestra: Ostfront is published and distributed to the gaming world at large is a triumph of gaming will and enthusiasm. Red Orchestra is, indeed, a game designed for gamers, by gamers. It started as mod (user made modification) for another game – Unreal Tournament 2003, a futuristic, competitive, multiplayer first-person shooter. Unreal Tournament 2003 had its own share of problems, and Epic soon replaced it with much improved Unreal Tournament 2004. The Red Orchestra mod team quickly adapted their work for new game. Designed as a realistic World War II mod for an inherently unrealistic shooter, Red Orchestra seemingly never stood much of a chance: Unreal Tournament players are not drawn to realism, and realism fans seem unlikely to buy Unreal Tournament 2004 just to be able to play a realistic World War II mod.

Epic, the developer of Unreal Tournament 2004, and nVidia, makers of graphic accelerators, then did what should have been chosen for "Gaming Community Award of the Year". Realising the power and creativity of the modding community, they started a Make Something Unreal Contest for the best Unreal Tournamnet 2004 mod. To make a long story short, faced with excellent competition, the Red Orchestra team finished as unlikely winners, taking home the right to commercially license the game or possibly sell the rights, a value estimated at half a million dollars. The winners elected to keep the rights and turn their mod into a commercial game.

Destroying Russian armored behemoths with Panzerfaust requires great deal of personal bravery	Class selection system provides basic description of each class and their weapons

Then came the time for what is usually the hardest part – turning a hobby into business. Sceptical observers, such as myself, would have predicted that everything would fall apart, and that we'd never see a standalone game from this.

Fortunately, the sceptics were wrong. The leaders of the Red Orchestra modding team started their own self-financed and self-run company,Tripwire Interactive, and announced they were developing Red Orchestra: Ostfront as a standalone game based, obviously, on the Unreal engine and their mod work. If anything, Red Orchestra: Ostfront is a work of love and dedication.

Autumn afternoon brings German Gebirgsjager assault, deep in the Caucasus mountains...	Map with objectives and resupply points is clearly drawn for each scenario

Red Orchestra, by the way, was the informal name for a Soviet spy ring in World War II Europe (Rotte Kapelle, in German), while Ostfront is simply the German name for the East Front. Long time Red Orchestra mod veterans take great care to use full title of the game, because Red Orchestra technically refers to the Unreal Tournamet 2004 mod, whereas Red Orchestra: Ostfront is the name of the new, standalone game. Red Orchestra: Ostfront is distributed via Valve's Steam system for digital distribution (digital download). Some players think that every game distributed over Steam is developed by Valve and uses Half Life's Source technology, but this is not the case. Steam is used by third party companies too, as an efficient method for digitally distributing their products. For gamers who dislike digital downloads or simply want to own a boxed copy, Red Orchestra: Ostfront will also be distributed via the usual retail channels in the USA, Europe, and worldwide, but gamers will still have to open a Steam account (free of charge) to play.