The Farm 51, whose previous games include Get Even, Painkiller: Hell and Damnation, and Necrovision, has unveiled its latest project, a modern-military multiplayer FPS called—and full points for subtlety on this one—World War 3. The new game will offer "large-scale combined arms battles with infantry, armored vehicles, and drones," and of course there will also be a separate battle royale mode called Recon.
Recon mode will be a fairly small-scale affair, built around individual reconnaissance squads tasked with capturing high-value targets in hostile territory. The Warzone mode is intended to be more strategic, with combined arms combat based on real-world military forces and locations such as Warsaw, Berlin, and Moscow. The big-picture war will also unfold across a strategic map: Kills, destroyed vehicles, and other achievements will all have an impact on the direction of the war, which will eventually consume the entire planet.
World War 3 is expected to launch in early access later this year, and The Farm 51 says it will commit to "community driven development" once it's live. "As an indie studio, we consider community feedback crucial in crafting enjoyable and memorable experiences," it said. "We want to invite you, the players, to take part in the common effort of making World War 3 the game you always wanted to play."
The announcement trailer looks pretty good, but it's mostly cinematic and so, like the trailer for another upcoming shooter that was recently smashed into our eyeballs, it doesn't actually tell us much about the game itself. It also seems very ambitious, which—with all due respect—makes me wonder if The Farm 51 is really the right studio to pull it off. Get Even showed promise but fell short of its aspirations, and the same could be said about Painkiller: Hell and Damnation and Necrovision.
But World War II Online was able to find niche success as a large-scale online military shooter (and yes, believe it or not it's still around, and will celebrate its 17th anniversary next month) and World War 3's multiplayer-only approach might help The Farm 51 accomplish something similar. The Euro-centric setting (the lead image on the site is a stare-down between Russian and Polish soldiers) could help put some space between it and larger Western franchises, and in a similar vein there's no overlooking the success of games like the big-in-Russia World of Tanks.
So it could work out—and if nothing else, maybe there's room for one more on that big battle royale train. A closer look at what's going on can be had at worldwar3.com.
