Overview:
I’ve been developing a Jagged Alliance 2 spiritual successor over the last couple of months, set during the Donbas and Ukraine wars.
It's main twist or hook is that the player camera, the view you control the game through, instead of it being a floating abstract camera into the world it is a physically present drone. The game will start with the 2014 Donbas War and continue through to the present day.
Gameplay:
Like JA2 the game will be divided into strategic and tactical layers. So far development has only been made on the tactical layer. The tactical combat in Walküre is not only taking after the base JA2 game but also the 1.13 mod. Large 100+ AP pool to allow for high resolution in the AP economy. Ballistic sim autism, all the movement modes and stances, etc. etc. Here's a video showing some of what's been done so far (no where near finished).
Gameplay->Strategic Layer:
For the strategic layer the game will start out with the objective of capturing a majority of strategic tiles in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Either by time passed or by completing a percentage of this objective the full scale Russian invasion will begin. From then on the end game objective is to end the war. The first way is via time where after so much in-game time the war just ends due to both the Ukrainian and Russian economy collapsing. Depending on what cities and regions you hold at this point will determine whether the war is considered won, lost or stalemated. The second way is by building up the Russian Volunteer Corps and/or Free Russia Legion and their network of Russian dissidents to start a coup. This will open up a second strategic map in the Moscow Oblast with extremely difficult battles but will provide I think the most satisfactory ending.
Gameplay->Planned Differences from JA:
One of the main differences in philosophy from JA will be the game's focus on battles with larger amounts of units. I am talking at the peak of the game 50 vs 50 battles, platoon sized. Due to this, certain aspects of unit management on the strategic layer will be streamlined, such as being able to set units to use default or custom made loadouts that then you can have replenish in a single click when at a resupply area and calculates the cost all in one go. See the idea is not to retard the complexity or customization but to have the tools there available so the player deals with less tedium. You will still be able to buy individual 9mm bullets, inventory manage them on each unit, and individually load them into each magazine but you will also be able to do something like create a loadout called Assault2 which has an AK, 4 frags, 320rnds etc. and just click a button to buy all of that for every unit with the Assault2 loadout. There should be a similar system for leveling up too.
In addition to this will be the implementation of non-character units and systems such as calling in artillery, dropping grenades from the drone, calling in (player controllable) kamikaze fpv drones, and vehicular units such as tanks and APCs.
Rather than strictly mercenaries you will recruit foreign volunteer characters and characters from various Ukrainian military units. From the Azov Brigade to the 72nd Mechanized Brigade to Makhnovist activists to Karelian Nationalists etc.
I have also been working on implementing a destruction physics system similar to Silent Storm:
In addition to the semi-fictional campaign there will also be historical and hypothetical scenarios that will be like the historical battles in Total War. That is something I think JA is missing, sometimes you don't want to play an entire campaign and just want to battle. I aim to make dozens and dozens of these since all they are is taking maps from the campaign, moving some stuff about, and then determining a preset player unit roster and enemy roster. For the historical ones there will be a series of intro graphics showing the context of the battle and such. The idea is that for the historical ones the encounter will replicate the battle as close as possible and not be balanced at all. Where as the hypothetical ones will be more game-designer pilled and about creating fun level design and challenges.
Story & Æesthetics:
You the player, are a CIA agent who gets to make their own special ops battalion made up of various foreign volunteers and soldiers from Ukrainian units. Having the player be a CIA agent helps as an entry point for western players as both you and your character are brought up to speed on the history and factions at play. Like the original JA2 the story for the most part will take a back seat with most of the game's narrative character coming from party banter. Included however, will be a large in-game enclyclopedia/codex covering every Ukrainian unit, battle, various political history, various culture things, and intense weapon and vehicle autism.
Core to the experience of Walküre is replicating the æsthetics of Ukraine war footage from Telegram and other social media. Non-gameplay UI elements of regimental emblem watermarks, camera noise vfx and all. Another aspect of this which is currently being worked is the first person PIP view that plays during player controlled unit's move.
The end goal is to replicate the æsthetic of this video (timestamp 12:00):
The combination of drone and soldier view with an immersive and chaotic intensity.
Special attention will be placed on the soundscape. SFX will be harsh replicating the sound of being picked up through soldier's intercoms. Whilst layered on top will be a dark electric ost with splashes of phonk and metal.
Localization:
This is a solo-developed project by myself who basically has no money. I am an English speaker only however, I have so far implemented a machine translation to українська. I hope to in the future get a proper translation done (so if there is any weird stuff in the screenshots and videos that's why).
