Now that my GMMK keyboard is finally fixed and in working order, I’m ready to return to the wargaming cubbyhole, even if there’s not a lot happening as of right now. But the little news floating around are magnificent. Are they as breathtaking as Ready or Not? The Swat 4 sequel I didn’t know I wanted until I started to sink all my waking hours into? Maybe, maybe. Let’s get on with this.

General Staff Will Ship in 2022, Is Going To Have 3D Units

General Staff will ship 2022, that much was confirmed by Dr. Ezra Sidran in a recent blog post at general-staff (dot) com. The wargame designer veteran and AI expert detailed how The General Staff: Black Powder Wargaming System (mouthful!) is comprised of four programs: The Army Editor, Map Editor, Scenario Editor, and the Game Engine.

Most importantly, fans of Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) will be happy to know that Dr. Ezra is teaming up with the folk behind the game in order to ditch the In-Game Engine- that was previously built in WPF and now it’s getting ported to Unity, the engine used by the developers of Grand Tactician. Dr. Ezra goes in length to praise the developers for their fantastic work on the look and feel of the game, saying as much that “What they accomplished visually with Grand Tactician was precisely the look and feel that I wanted for General Staff”. This move to Unity is sure to enhance the visual experience and accelerate the completion of the General Staff Game Engine in order to ship it in 2022.

Personally, what excites me the most are the limitless possibilities it’s going to offer for scenario creations. Fans of the Peninsular Wars should check out Strategy and Wargaming for some custom scenarios I already plan to recreate, mainly the battle of Bussaco. I recently spent some days there and it blew me away how hard it must have been for soldiers to fight on such mountainous and rugged terrain and harsh conditions. Nothing like a field trip to understand what happened. With this wonder team behind General Staff, battles of the Gunpowder Era will finally get the love they deserve and I’m so eager to see all these four parts come together and deliver on their much long-awaited potential. If you’re interested in reading more about General Staff, check out my interview with Dr. Ezra Sidran.

Battlefront Plans for 2022 Are Scarily Ambitious

The Battlefront Team are a curious bunch. On one hand, they create some of the most complete simulations on the market but, on the other, have been doing a terrible job of marketing themselves forever. Fortunately, with the help of Slitherine and Matrix things have gotten exponentially better, with their games finally hitting the Steam store shelves after years of resisting to do so. Undoubtedly, this move must have been successful, because all of their World War 2 titles are coming to Steam during the present year. This puts a smile on my grumpy face.

First on the launching pad is Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy and all its DLC is set to release on Steam and Matrix sometime between March and April. Add to this a new Battle Pack, focusing on early D-Day Combat.

Sometime in June or July, Combat Mission: Fortress Italy is releasing into Steam and Matrix, with a Battlepack planned as well.

Red Thunder is arriving in September/ October, with a new battle pack focusing on the Kampfgruppe Mühlenkamp’s attempts at stopping the Soviets in July 1944.

Final Blitzkrieg is- fittingly- set to arrive during the last two months of the year and yes! There’s more content coming, but instead of a battle pack, Final Blitzkrieg is releasing into Steam and Matrix with a new Module “that will extend the time frame through to the end of the war and introduce Commonwealth Forces plus the last-ditch forces of the Third Reich”.

Add to this a new free Engine 5 upgrade that’s going to address performance issues, a new Black Sea module including the US Marines, Ukrainian Airborne, and Russian Airborne forces, but no release date on that one yet.

Just before leaving, Steve teased a surprise but that’s to be revealed later on.

WARNO Roadmap Revealed

WARNO didn’t have the warmest of receptions, with many a wargamer pointing calloused fingers at its rough and unpolished edges. Eugen is doing its best to ease minds and diminish heart rates by prefacing its roadmap by stating that “Things will change, updates will be made, division and mechanics to be added or tweaked- this takes time and resources, and we fully intend to grow our game from good to great”. Their response and call for a respectful attitude towards other players and the development team slightly hint that some people have been very, very naughty. Don’t be that person.

February is going to see the release of Milestone Ney and it’s going to include two new divisions (The 8th U.S. Infantry Division and the Soviet 39th Guards Motorized Rifle Division) and a new 10v10 map.

The following milestones, called Davout and Murat will feature two German Divisions (East and West) each. Both will bring new maps into the game. These milestones might include the first batch of towed weapons systems. Of course, those won’t be the last milestones before WARNO hits the v1.0, but are the ones Eugen is able to forecast at the moment. Artificial Intelligence abusers might like to hear that an Army General Campaign is also in the works but that is still a long way off.

Wargame Design Studio Answered Your Questions

Right before the year ended, the team behind Wargame Design Studios sent a survey to gauge the satisfaction of their community with their most recent moves. From the looks of it, the survey came back rather positive, with the team deciding to dedicate a blog post to answer some questions they found to be pertinent enough to deserve some observations. So check it out here, maybe they have something to say to you.

Steam Lunar Sale Is Here

Just in case you opened your Steam today and haven’t noticed, there’s a Steam Lunar Sale going on right now, so if you’ve missed any game during the Steam Winter Sale, now might be the perfect time to get them. Just please! Please! Don’t be tempted to spend any money on Battlefield 2042 because it’s trash. If you want some good recommendations, there you go! Some recommendations might be outdated, or not even apply but hey, that’s what I have.

And this is all I have for you this week. Stay tuned during the next couple of days because I’m currently editing a surprise interview with the developer of one of my most anticipated games for 2022. I can guarantee you won’t guess who it is!

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