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- Bunker, but not that one: in the game Commandos: Origins, the history of the Second World War was distorted
Bunker, but not that one: in the game Commandos: Origins, the history of the Second World War was distorted
The developers of the video game Commandos: Origins from Darmstadt have distorted the history of the Second World War. Izvestia was among the first to play a multiplatform novelty, the tactical strategy Commandos: Origins, dedicated to the "unknown pages" of the war. As it turned out, behind the facade of the historical game lies a product with a lot of distortions and interpretations, and they all have something in common. Izvestia explains (and shows) exactly what.
What is the new part of Commandos about?
The creators of the video game Commandos: Origins promise gamers a project in historically authentic locations on the theme of World War II, this is literally stated in the description: "historically authentic WWII environments". At the same time, the Izvestia editorial board revealed an extremely loose attitude towards the history of the Second World War, especially with regard to the events on the Eastern Front.
By genre, Commandos are real—time tactics. The series has been released since 1998 and includes five games in the main line, two remasters and a large-scale addition Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty. All the games in the series are dedicated to various episodes of the Second World War, among them there are such as Operation Barbarossa (Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines) and the Battle for Stalingrad (Commandos 3: Destination Berlin).
Screenshot from the game Commandos Origins
The total sales of the series exceeded 3.3 million copies, according to 2008 data, the total revenue amounted to more than $41 million. It's been 19 years between the new installment and the previous one (Commandos: Strike Force), and fans have been waiting patiently all these years.
In the new part with the subtitle "Origins", the developers moved away from the concept of realism and complete historical authenticity, instead they began to create fictional episodes of the Second World War in locations close to historical ones. As a result, the Commandos: Origins storyline campaign is dedicated to the fight against the secret organization of the Third Reich Speerspitze, which translates as "spearhead". It is headed by fictional Nazis: officers Keicher, Nehring, Garven, as well as the head of the organization, Broch, and his right-hand man named Felter.
Screenshot from the game Commandos Origins
To create an authentic effect, the authors from Claymore Game Studios mixed together historical information about the technology and locations of the war with data on fictional criminals, stylized as real questionnaires. The igrodele themselves indicate in the official annotation: "Complete more than 10 tasks in the realities of the Second World War, which will take you to the Arctic, Africa, and many other parts of the world."
Fans berate Commandos
Users on the forums were dissatisfied with the free handling of the story, in particular, one of the buyers of the game on the Steam forum stated that, among other problems in Commandos: Origins, there is an inadequate representation of historical facts and somewhat strange cinematic clips stylized as a documentary chronicle.
Izvestia had the opportunity to play the novelty on its own. It has been translated into all major languages, including Russian, but the Russian localization is sloppy and has a lot of grammatical errors.
Screenshot from the game Commandos Origins
The fourth mission in the game is called Operation Cleaver. In reality, this operation took place in May 1945 along the Skagerrak and Kattegat Straits. In Commandos: Origins, an operation called "Cleaver" takes place on the border of the USSR and Poland in 1940 on the territory of a freight depot. There is not a single soldier in the mission who speaks Polish or Russian, there is not a single recognizable element of the Soviet era — neither the Red Banner stars that were on the border between the two countries as early as 1939, nor the communist elements like the hammer and sickle.
In the penultimate mission, Operation Guardian, a special unit in 1941 detonates a unique super-heavy railway artillery piece of the German army, known as the Dora. In reality, the weapon was used much later, during the storming of Sevastopol in 1942. On April 22, 1945, the advanced units of the Allied army, 36 km from the Bavarian town of Auerbach, discovered the remains of the Dora and Tolstoy Gustav guns blown up by the Germans. In the USSR, engineering commissions were organized to study the weapons and equipment of defeated Nazi Germany.
Screenshot from the game Commandos Origins
Another loose interpretation, or rather an anachronism, was the real special operation "Shetland bus". It was conducted by the Norwegian military in conjunction with the British special services since 1941. In the game, the operation takes place much earlier — in September 1940 - and instead of several special forces crews, the operation is performed by literally three mercenaries. The authors even incorrectly indicated in the documents the number of victims of the Resistance in Norway. As you know, the number of Norwegians executed by the Germans for participating in the Resistance is estimated at 366 people. Another 39 members of the Resistance movement died during the investigation from torture. 658 political prisoners and underground fighters died in concentration camps in Norway, and another 1,433 died in concentration camps outside the country. The document, which can be found during the Operation Rapture mission, contains only one number — 1433.
What else do we know about the studio?
Claymore Game Studio was founded in 2019 in Darmstadt, Germany. The continuation of the Commandos series after almost 19 years of absence, not counting the remasters of the second and third parts in 2022, became her debut project. The lion's share of the money for the development of the game was provided by a fund associated with the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. He invested €50 million in the development of several games from local studios, while Claymore received €1.53 million. This allowed a team of 30 developers to work on the game for more than four years.
Screenshot from the game Commandos Origins
On physical media, Commandos: Origins is released in a month, on May 22. This is not the first time in recent years that a European game has taken liberties with the theme of the Second World War and the events of the Eastern Front — the games War Mongrels (2021) from the Polish studio Destructive Creations and Last Train Home (2023) from the Czech Ashborne Games serve as striking examples.
The Commandos series has been distorting historical events for many years, for example, the failure of Operation Barbarossa in the very first game of the series was secured by an international team of saboteurs from an Irishman, a Frenchman and a Briton. Soldiers of Soviet origin were not part of the commando team, but Jack O'Hara, Thomas Hancock, Francis Woolridge, Samuel Brooklyn, James Blackwood, and Rene Duchamp are among the soldiers in Commandos: Origins.
Screenshot from the game Commandos Origins
The editors studied the PlayStation 5 version of the game and found numerous technical problems: FPS drops, that is, the number of frames per second, long loading of textures, and technical errors when dead soldiers selectively resurrect after reloading a saved file. It is worth noting that the developers promise to support Commandos: Origins with updates and patches, but at the moment the game's rating is only 56% in the Critics' Recommendations category on OpenCritic and 76% positive user reviews on the Steam platform. She is most often scolded for glaring bugs, crooked animations and a loose attitude towards history.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
