Ubisoft’s real-time strategy opus is heading to PS3 this autumn. But can an experimental RTS really work on the current generation consoles? Editorial Content Director, Julian Gerighty thinks it can – especially as this one is inspired by Mario Kart…

Two months ago, a Russian general warned that Poland had exposed itself to nuclear attack by agreeing to house a US missile interceptor base. At the same time, Russia was flexing its imperialist muscles against Georgia in a short, bloody conflict. Oh and oil prices were skyrocketing.

It was all rather worrying to us, but to the developers of Ubisoft’s forthcoming real-time battle strategy title, EndWar, it must have been strangely gratifying. The events all matched ‘fictional’ elements written into the game’s backstory – they were just happening many years before the designers had envisioned them. The downside was, in EndWar, Russian imperialism, a US missile shield and uncontrollably rising oil prices all sort of lead to one thing: World War Three.

Hmmm, glad all that passed over then.

EndWar is a brave new take on the RTS genre. There are three factions – the US, Europe and Russia – all fighting to dominate the world. Once you’ve chosen a side, you must take part in a series of military engagements, ordering your units via voice commands only. To begin with yelling stuff like ‘Unit 4 attack Hostile 5, Unit 2 secure Alpha’ at your PS3 feels weird, but the fact that the infantrymen, tanks and attack choppers instantly respond soon makes it feel completely (and perhaps scarily) natural.

But I wanted to find out more about the concept behind the game, and about how modern console owners are expected to respond to a deep military strategy simulation…

What inspired the story behind EndWar?

Everything we did in terms of narrative, was to set up huge land battles. Obviously, war today is long distance, tactical and precise. What we wanted to do was a little bit messier - soldier against soldier, tank against tank. So to put that into place we had to introduce the idea of the missile shield – a nuclear deterrent, a tactical weapon deterrent, and one of the key things on the road to World War Three, because it increases tension between the factions. Something else that’s very important is the skyrocketing price of oil, which we’re actually seeing today. Another thing is the imperial ambition of Russia, and how they’re using their oil riches to pump more resources into the military. Those three things together set the stage for what’s going to happen in the first part of the story. There are about ten missions that you’ll play through that explain more about the tensions, and how World War Three explodes.

What was the impetus for Ubisoft to develop an RTS for the current generation consoles?

I think there are two things. Ubisoft genuinely does try to make innovative games, games that haven’t been done before and games that treat certain genres a little bit differently. There is a lot of innovation in games like Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon. The second thing is that the Tom Clancy license is perfectly adapted to this kind of RTS experience. In fact Red Storm, Tom Clancy’s company, did an RTS called Force 21 back in 1932 or something! It was a long time ago. I think the marriage of our competence with tactical shooters, plus the Tom Clancy license really made us look at this. Why on console? Because it hasn’t been done before, it’s a really good challenge.

Come back tomorrow for the next part of the interview…