Join the Steam community to play with other gaffers! Just go to the group's tab on your friends list and then join a gaffer's game with ease!
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ro2gaf
System Requirements
Minimum:
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: Dual Core 2.3 GHz or better
RAM: 2 GB
Graphics card: 256 MB SM 3.0 DX9 Compliant NVIDIA® GeForce 7800 GTX or better ATI® Radeon® HD 2900 GT or better
Sound: Windows Supported Sound Card
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c
Hard Drive: 8 GB free hard drive space
Recommended:
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: Quad Core 2.6 GHz or better
RAM: 3 GB
Graphics card: 512 MB SM 3.0 DX9 Compliant NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 260 or better ATI® Radeon® HD 5750 or better
Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy or better
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c
Hard Drive: 8 GB free hard drive space
Heroes of Stalingrad will take the award winning Red Orchestra franchise into the next generation of gaming. Cutting edge graphics and audio built on Unreal Engine 3, inventive features and streamlined realism will deliver an unrivaled WWII experience. Focusing on the Battle of Stalingrad and the surrounding operations, both German and Russian, from July 1942 to February 1943 the game allows the player to experience one of the most brutal battles in all of human history. For the first time ever in a first person shooter gamers will be able to experience WWII from the Axis side in a German single player campaign. As always with the Red Orchestra franchise, Tripwire will aim to deliver unrivaled accuracy and attention to detail, along with gritty, vicious combat in multi-player, co-op and solo modes. Again, Tripwire have listened to the fans and have designed a whole set of new features to make the game more accessible and easy to get into all while delivering the tactical shooter realism fans of the original game loved.
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad has its roots in the Red Orchestra Combined Arms mod for UT2003/2004 that won the Make Something Unreal competition. Tripwire used their Grand Prize to make Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, released in 2006. Five years later TWI returns to the Eastern Front once again for a re-imagining of the series. For the first time there is a singleplayer campaign, although supposedly this is more or less a glorified training mode for the core of the game: multiplayer. This isn't your average online shooter. A fellow Gaffer didn't call RO2 a death simulator for nothing, because the multiplayer is brutally hard. Friendly fire is on, single shots will kill and if you don't use cover you're dead meat. But once you get to grips to with the game and learn the maps a little you're in for one of the best tactical shooter experiences currently available.
- RO multiplayer taken to new heights: Tripwires renowned MP already exceeds that of much of the competition the new game will stretch that lead even further. With highly addictive and fun varieties of game-play online, the game will feature everything from quick, brutal firefights, through to more intricate and challenging simulation modes.
Persistent Stats Tracking and Player Progression: Persistence constantly gives the gamer something to strive for and keeps them playing. Grow in rank, earn medals, improve your abilities, and become a Hero all visible to the complete online gaming community and embedded within the game.
Heroes: Obtain the ultimate goal and become a Hero online. Players with hero status inspire troops around them and cause fear in their enemies. Heroes have access to the best and rarest weapons and equipment, and will stand out visually from the rest of the soldiers.
Stalingrad Campaign: The Stalingrad campaign will feature the multiplayer maps used in a campaign layout recreating the battle for Stalingrad from both the German and Russian sides. This will be enhanced with story elements through the form of mission introductions and in-game cinematic sequences that begin and end the campaign.
Unique Focus the Battle of Stalingrad in depth: takes the familiar WWII genre into a unique direction. Far removed from the well-trodden Normandy setting, gameplay is based on fresh scenarios and actions the player has never experienced before. Follow the German army as they assault the city of Stalingrad, to the banks of the Volga. Follow the Soviet army as it holds the city against all the odds then destroys the Axis forces.
First person cover system: Experience the ultimate firefights that a cover system allows, from the immersion of a first person view. Peek or blind fire over and around cover and more.
Squad Command: Command fire teams on the battlefield using an easy to use first person interface. Suppress the enemy, send a fire team to flank them and hit them where it hurts!
WWII weaponry redefined: true to life ballistics, bullet penetration, breathing, adjustable sights, free aim, weapon bracing, photo-real graphics and more, create WWII weaponry that has no equal.
Morale: Experience what it is like to be a soldier in one of the bloodiest conflicts in history and the importance of a soldiers state of mind and how it can turn the tide of battle.
Single Player Campaigns: Play through a full German campaign AND a full Russian campaign, in iconic engagements from the Battle of Stalingrad.
Enhanced Unreal® Engine 3: Built on an enhanced version of Unreal Engine 3 the game features cutting edge visuals and features.
And coming after release:
- Co-op: Players can connect with their friends and battle AI in multiple game types including the Stalingrad Campaign, Skirmish Mode, and more.
- Offline Challenges: Offline challenges such as the shooting range and assault courses let the player learn and hone their skills to perfection with all of the weapons and features in the game. Training with different challenges to achieve awards, win competitions and improve their skills the player can pit their best times/scores against the rest of the online gaming community.
- New vehicles: We will roll out new vehicles for the game, including new tanks as well as armored transports.
http://www.heroesofstalingrad.com/about/
Focusing on The Battle of Stalingrad, Red Orchestra 2 pins you in southwestern Russia where German army (under the rule of Hitler) faces the Soviet Union, (under the rule of Stalin) for control of Stalingrad. The real motives of this battle is still unclear, though the main reason stated is that Stalingrad was a vital transport hub, based on the Volga River. Its capture would open the way to Baku, and the oil reserves of the Caucasus for the oil-thirsty German Army. The city being named after Hitlers great adversary, Joseph Stalin, would also mean a massive morale boost for Germany if it were to capture the city. Taking place during the cold winter of 1942 to 1943, it was among the largest battle on the Eastern Front and was marked by its brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties (combined casualties amounting to nearly two million).
In September 1942, the German commander of the Sixth Army, General Von Paulus, assisted by the Fourth Panzer Army, advanced on the city of Stalingrad. His primary task was to secure the oil fields in the Caucasus and to do this, Paulus was ordered by Hitler to take Stalingrad. The Germans final target was to have been Baku.
In early September 1942, the German Army advanced to the city. The Russians, already devastated by the power of Blitzkrieg during Operation Barbarossa, had to make a stand especially as the city was named after the Russian leader, Joseph Stalin. For simple reasons of morale, the Russians could not let this city fall. Likewise, the Russians could not let the Germans get hold of the oil fields in the Caucasus. Stalins order was "Not a step backwards". Areas captured by the Germans during the day, were re-taken by the Russians at night.
On November 19th, the Russians were in a position whereby they could launch a counter-offensive, codename Operation Uranus. A surprise pincer attack was launched by Russian armies to cut off the Gerrnan Sixth Arrny, which was then locked in a bloody struggle for the city of Stalingrad. Trapped in a Kessel, an egg-shaped line of defense thirty miles wide and twenty miles deep, the Sixth Army was ordered by Hitler to hold its ground rather than retreat west to join the vanguard of the German forces.
Supreme Commander to Sixth Army, January 24, 1943: "Surrender is forbidden. Sixth Army will hold their positions to the last man and the last round and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution towards the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western world." -Hitler's communication with Von Paulus.
The success of these attacks caused the weakly held flanks to collapse and the Sixth Army to be cut off and surrounded inside Stalingrad. As the Russian winter set in, the Sixth Army weakened rapidly from cold, starvation and ongoing Soviet attacks.
"My hands are done for, and have been ever since the beginning of December. The little finger of my left hand is missing and - what's even worse - the three middle fingers of my right one are frozen. I can only hold my mug with my thumb and little finger. I'm pretty helpless; only when a man has lost any fingers does he see how much he needs then for the smallest jobs. The best thing I can do with the little finger is to shoot with it. My hands are finished." -Anonymous German soldier.
Command ambiguity coupled with Adolf Hitler's resolute belief in the "power of the will" and the value of "standing fast" further compounded the German predicament. Eventually, the failure to break the encirclement by relieving German forces, coupled with the failure of re-supply by air, caused the final collapse. By early February 1943, German resistance in Stalingrad had ceased and the remaining elements of the surrounded Sixth Army had either surrendered or had been destroyed.
"I was horrified when I saw the map. We're quite alone, without any help from outside. Hitler has left us in the lurch. Whether this letter gets away depends on whether we still hold the airfield. We are lying in the north of the city. The men in my unit already suspect the truth, but they aren't so exactly informed as I am. No, we are not going to be captured. When Stalingrad falls you will hear and read about it. Then you will know that I shall not return." -Anonymous German soldier.
The failure of the German Army was nothing short of a disaster. A complete army group was lost at Stalingrad and 91,000 Germans were taken prisoner. With such a massive loss of manpower and equipment, the Germans simply did not have enough manpower to cope with the Russian advance to Germany when it came. Many of the dead are still where they have fallen: skeletons in the open fields of Stalingrad (now Volgograd). Others have been buried in mass graves, which German and Austrian private organizations are exhuming and turning into war cemeteries.
"The God of War has gone over to the other side." -Hitler.
In Red Orchestra 2, you'll either be fighting as a Russian on the Allied side or as the Germans on the Axis side. The Germans are identifiable by their greenish-gray uniforms in RO2 (maybe other colored uniforms in the future such as green or white) and the Russians are in a mustard-brown colored uniforms similar to tan in color. Both sides have their own unique weaponry with their own unlocks and features.
Here are the weaponry on each side that we know of so far:
Mauser C96
Walther P38
Mauser Karabiner 98k
Mauser Karabiner 98k Sniper Rifle
Gewehr 41 Walther
Walther Maschinenkarabiner 42
Maschinenpistole 40
Maschinengewehr 34
Anti-Tank Rifle
Stielhandgranate 39
Unknown Anti-Tank Grenade
Satchel Charge
Tokarev TT33
Nagant M1895
Mosin-Nagant 91/30
Mosin-Nagant 91/30 Sniper Rifle
Tokarev SVT40
Tokarev AVT40
PPsh 41
Degtyarev DP/DT 1928
Maxim 1910
PTRS Anti-Tank Rifle
Unknown Anti-Tank Grenade
- http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=48698
I'll add reviews as they come in!
Here are some good videos and pictures to give you an idea about the game. I'll update as requested!
Infantry gameplay from the beta (TE-Grain Elevator)
Tank gameplay from the beta (TE-Gumrak)
Infantry gameplay from the beta (TE-Barracks)
Tripwire's Alan Wilson plays the beta and tries to talk to Total Biscuit
Corny commercial
Screenshots @ the official site
This is a comparison of the Russian and German uniforms to help you easily identify them on the battlefield:
This thread is a WIP and will be updated as we know more once we play the full game. I'd like to thank Shagg_187, Dakota47, Max, for help in gathering the information and their big contributions to this thread. Thanks to all those who also gave me their opinions and suggestions.
If you want more information, be sure to check out Relfst3r's thread that has helped me out a lot and is a must see! http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=48698
Expect more info in the future!
-Demolitio
