I still love Verdun. While Battlefield 1 is surprisingly excellent, its take on World War I is still all explosions and Hollywood glitz, glamorous even in its ugliest moments. Verdun always felt like a more realistic representation--grim, not shy about showing the horrors of the Great War.
And so I’m excited by today’s news that developers Blackmill Games and M2H are working on a sequel/standalone expansion, Tannenberg. I was worried the big-budget competition from Battlefield 1 might’ve scared the devs out of the World War I space, but apparently not. Here’s the first teaser:
The gist:
“Named after the heavy fighting at the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914, the standalone expansion will see players immersed in battles reflecting warfare on the Eastern Front. A brand new 64 player game mode captures this more mobile nature of battle in the East, while the open fields and pastures offer tactical freedom and require different survival skills to the no man’s land of the Western Front.”
No price or release date yet, besides “Expected 2017” on the newly minted Steam page. Also no word yet on whether it’ll go through the same one-year Early Access cycle as Verdun did, so this year’s release may be more alpha/beta than finished product.
My interest is piqued though. Verdun isn’t as spit-polished and beautiful as Battlefield 1, but the devs have evidently found a niche audience interested in a more realistic World War I experience, me among them. It’s the type of series PC gaming is built around, and I can’t wait to see more.
