It’s easy to guess what a game called ‘End of War 1945’ might be about. The game is set in the final year of the Second World War, with the horrendous conflict still raging, but coming to its conclusion.
Inspired by the classic but also casual style of ‘00s FPS games, End of War 1945 focuses on gameplay and setting, with multiplayer action set across a range of maps in Germany, Italy and – less typically – Yugoslavia.
It’s the debut release from the appropriately named indie studio The 45th Division, who spent countless hours researching WWII history and developing the game in Unreal Engine 4, with close attention to all the small details. The development team all have screen names based on famous generals of the war, and so when we asked to chat with one of them about making their game, who should we speak with but the 45th Division’s commander, General Patton, who has also kindly allowed us to call him John. Just John.
Ever since Wolfenstein 3D set the mould for the genre back in 1992, WWII has been arguably the most prolific setting for the first-person shooter. In fact, it’s difficult to think of a year in recent memory in which a shooter concerning the war hasn’t come out, from triple-A series like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Medal of Honor right down to indies via mid-market material. What makes this conflict so captivating for so many developers?
“WWII, in general, has defined our world ever since it ended,” John says. “For games though, it’s attractive because of how important it is and everyone is at least a little familiar with the events. WWII provides a modern and exciting setting for a war game, and the gameplay players want isn’t far off from how combat actually took place.
“There was a lot of mid-range and close-quarters fighting. A variety of weapons from bolt actions, semi-automatic rifles, submachine guns, general-purpose machine guns, shotguns, and the first assault rifles were all used. Modern warfare doesn’t have these massive battles. Often, a modern battle is fought between insurgents and an unmanned drone.”
There’s an obvious downside to this appeal, however, and that’s competition. Recent years have seen both COD and Battlefield return to WWII, as well as Days of War and Battalion 1944, both of which have a similar focus on multiplayer. How will End of War 1945 stand out among so many other shooters with the same setting?
“We’re trying to be something new by blending the older, more barebones shooters like Call of Duty 1, 2, and Medal of Honor with Call of Duty: World at War,” John explains. “You’ll have modern movement and gun mechanics, without the perks and killstreaks to complicate things. There’s a lot of unique game modes that you’ll need to adapt your style to as well, all of which make sense in the setting.”
There is a major difference, however. The biggest FPS games like to recreate some of the biggest moments of the World Wars, showing us D-Day, Stalingrad, or Dunkirk, whereas End of War 1945 focuses on some of the more obscure, but no less interesting, areas of WWII. By the time it launches on Steam Early Access on May 8, there will be eight different maps set in three different countries: Yugoslavia, Germany, and Italy.
“The three Italian maps – Valla Alpina, Monrupino, and Trieste – focus on the Yugoslav Partisan campaign to take Trieste,” John says. “Trieste and its surrounding areas served as a stronghold for Axis forces at the end of the war. Another two maps – Retreat and Poljana – focus on the retreat of German forces from Yugoslavia into Austria, taking place in the last weeks of the war.” These first five maps are all based on Germany’s conflicts with local partisans, featuring everything from a sniper tower in Monrupino to the bunker setting of Valla Alpina.
“The other maps pit American forces against German in Endsieg, Nuremberg, and Westwall. Nuremberg, in particular, was a holy city of sorts for the Nazis. They fought tooth and nail even as the war was surely lost, and the city was little more than dust. A forgotten but costly battle for American troops.” The locations aren’t just names to The 45th Division. Each map is carefully crafted around the history of the events that took place there, from the ancient church of Monrupino to the walls in Endsieg, and the type of conflict experienced in WWII.
“Fighting at night, utilising ruins and underground areas – these were all tactics employed in real life. Every map has a history to it. You’ll never be thrown into some training camp in England or anywhere with no historical authenticity. Each map has a date of when it takes place. If you listen to the radios, you’ll hear actual broadcasts from that day, like music, speeches, announcements, and orders. Propaganda writing on the walls is taken from archival photos and videos. If you’re setting a game in WWII, it needs to be historically authentic.”
History is where The 45th Division started when making End of War 1945, and it gave the studio a good idea of the kind of maps it wanted to create, with a variety of tactics and gameplay. “Once the map’s location is decided, we set up our lighting to fit the tone of the scene or the gameplay – for example, the smokey dark sky for the ruins of Trieste.”
This attention to detail extends even to the architecture you’ll find in each map – with appropriate and necessary adjustments for gameplay. “For buildings, we look at historical photos of the area we’re depicting. It would be nice to simply recreate a town as it was, but you normally need to switch around the locations of buildings to make the map more even for each spawn. Photographs are in abundance for the WWII era and are a great primary source of inspiration. We then add cover throughout the map. These can be benches in a city, fortifications, barrels, crates, and parked vehicles, then we add details, like propaganda posters and audio for the radios.”
End of War 1945 is developed in Unreal Engine 4, a resource which the 45th Division found to be packed with forward-thinking technology. “There are so many great reasons to use Unreal Engine. Unreal is constantly updated with the latest features in rendering, network, and audio technologies,” John tells us. “Unreal 4.22 introduced ray tracing capabilities and Unreal 4.24 introduced support for the Steam Sockets networking interface. Steam Sockets lets us use relay servers from Valve, allowing lower pings for a lot of players, and improves security by masking a user’s IP address.”
When building the aforementioned battlefields, John tells us that Unreal Engine provides assistance that the team didn’t expect when they started the project. “The Quixel Megascans library was made free for all users of Unreal Engine. This is a massive library of PBR (physically based rendering) ready materials, 3D models, and textures that we can use in our levels. It’s also easy to export Megascans assets to our Unreal project, and that saves us a lot of time when creating our maps. As for scalability, Unreal helped a lot when simplifying LODs for static and skeletal meshes. LODs let game developers minimise the details for models that the player doesn’t see up close. You can easily tweak settings for each detail level right from the Unreal editor for any model.”
That scalability, the ability to make a game that can run on many different systems, was a crucial advantage for UE4. When you’re making a multiplayer game for others to enjoy, it’s imperative. “Remaining scalable overall, while also looking good enough for modern players’ expectations, is a challenge,” John tells us.
“Unreal Engine 4 is surprisingly scalable. It’s tempting to use the most hardware-demanding features and really make the game beautiful. Unfortunately, this can exclude players that might only have integrated graphics or an older desktop. You can make End of War 1945 run on a wide variety of systems but you can also make it look really nice, with 4K textures, PBR, fully detailed effects/lighting, anisotropic filtering, ambient occlusion, and we’re working on adding raytracing features.”
Ultimately, though, End of War 1945 is a game made with older FPS multiplayer in mind. As a result it was only natural that the team included less demanding players when it came to hardware capabilities. “For performance and gameplay reasons we went with a more simple look for the game. Older shooters let you focus more on what you needed to see, like enemies, cover, and weapons. More modern shooters have a lot of details – a lot of players even switch their graphics settings to the lowest they can so they can reduce the clutter on screen. End of War 1945 is not an esports title, but we believe this style is good for every player.”
The rich setting of End of War 1945 has set the project up as a history lesson and a framework for an engaging multiplayer experience built for all players. From those looking for ample context to a shooter, to fans that enjoy a more casual experience focused on “players, guns, and grenades”, The 45th Division is working hard to create that game.
End of War 1945 enters Steam Early Access on May 8. Unreal Engine 4 development is now free.
In this sponsored series, we’re looking at how game developers are taking advantage of Unreal Engine 4 to create a new generation of PC games. With thanks to Epic Games and The 45th Division.