News

[shubn]

http://www.cossacks3.com/

Return of the legendary Cossacks! A large-scale historical strategy on great battles of the XVII-XVIII centuries.

Modern remake of the best 2001 strategy, with armies numbering in thousands of warriors and reconciled game mechanics. It’s a genuine RTS classic, including construction and production of resources. A vast selection of unit types, cold steel and firearms, influence of the landscape, and the realistic physics provide the player with an unlimited number of tactical opportunities.

Impressive scope.
Up to 10,000 units on the battlefield! 12 playing nations, 70 various types of playing units, 100 scientific researches, and over 140 diverse historical buildings.

Classical gameplay.
Real-time strategy with construction, production of resources, and the development tree. Naval battles, influence of the landscape and the realistic physics provides the player with a vast number of tactical moves.

Multiplayer.
Breathtaking battles for up to 7 players on the map. Possibility to unite into teams or to play against the computer. Flexible customization of random maps with selection of the desired landscape.

Game features:

• Breathtaking historical real-time strategy.
• Actions unfold in Europe in the XVII–XVIII centuries.
• Five singleplayer historical campaigns.
• 12 playable nations.
• Grandiose battles of up to 10,000 units on the map.
• Realistic physics of bullets and cannonballs.
• Considerable influence of the landscape on battle tactics.
• Infinite variations of battles with computer enemies on random maps.
• Flexible generator of random maps with selection of a preferable landscape.
• Windows, Mac OS and Linux support.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/18/ ... cossacks-3

STALKER Studio GSC Game World Returns With Cossacks 3

Cossacks 3 is the first game the recently re-opened GSC Game World is taking on, a remake of the first game in the Ukranian studio's real-time strategy series of the same name.

It's expected to launch this year on PC, Mac, and Linux.

The news comes from Cossacks 3's producer, Evgeniy Grigorovich, who spoke to Polygon about the unique success of the classic Cossacks games and why GSC has chosen to return to them.

"We decided to do a remake of the first Cossacks with all its original gameplay, but also give players updated graphics and a new story," Grigorovich told Polygon. "We really think that many of the players who were too young in 2001 to play Cossacks literally missed out on it and will be impressed by the gameplay of this classic RTS."

Cossacks 3 will include a historical campaign mode, a multiplayer mode that allows a mix of human and AI players, and a tool for generating custom maps.

There will be 12 playable nations at first, including Ukraine, Russia, France, England, and Prussia/Austria, but the team hopes to bring that number up to 20 in post-launch updates.

Full mod support is also a priority at launch.

The team who worked on the original Cossacks games was separate from the team who worked on STALKER, which GSC Game World is arguably most known for outside of Europe. Several ex-STALKER devs left to work on Survarium, which is still in Steam Early Access.

GSC Game World re-opened in December last year after a series of "obstacles" lead to a shut down in 2011.

We don't know how much Cossacks 3 will cost, but back when GSC Game World first began speaking of its next project, company representative Valentine Yeltyshev said the team wanted to make "an old-fashioned, full price game" rather than something free-to-play.

You can read more about the history of GSC Game World's Cossacks series over on Polygon.

[icycalm]

Wow, never would have expected this. But why are they calling it Cossacks 3 if it's a "modern remake of the best 2001 strategy"? And why a remake of Cossacks instead of Cossacks 2?

In any case, it's certainly good news. These games are AoE on steroids, hence the best games in the genre before SupCom came in and moved things forward. Although, to be honest, now that I've played TA, I'd say that AoE/Cossacks and TA were neck-to-neck before SupCom came out and pulled definitively ahead.

The thing however is that it's impossible to really enjoy a flat-map RTS after you've played PA, so it's kind of a wasted effort. I really need to get around finishing the PA review and explaining all this stuff.

One thing I'll say is that Cossacks 1 had a very varied, very difficult campaign that I never got round to finishing, so I hope they bring it over to this (or, even better, make a new one of the same calibre).

If this really is a "Cossacks 1 HD" remake, they are doing their customers a disservice by calling it Cossacks 3 though. If so, they are almost scamming people.

[icycalm]

I never played Cossacks 2 (though I bought it at some point), but I am guessing it was inferior to the original, like AoE 3 was supposedly inferior to 2 (haven't played that either), and that's why they are not remaking that.

In any case, it's inexcusable to call it 3. And none of the journalists quoted above bothered to question this -- the first thing that should come to mind when hearing this announcement.