Battleground Europe
History
Volunteer for duty to the battlefields of WWII Online: Battleground Europe where you can chose to fighters and bombers, command tanks and trucks, captain and crew naval vessels or fight on the field as an infantryman or Paratroopers. Now it's time to see what you can contribute to the war effort for your side in the greatest online conflict ever. Succeed and help the cause of the Allied or Axis forces. Fail and watch your side get pushed back and struggle for a foothold. Leparcbomber.jpg
WWII Online: Battleground Europe is the ultimate PvP MMOG in a combined arms simulation set in a relentless, action-packed 3D environment where players can command and crew a variety of accurately modeled vehicles, naval vessels, and aircraft; or sling a variety of infantry weapons and fight as a foot soldier with and against thousands of other players.
- Thousands of online players sharing a single world
- Live Campaign with a victorious force
- Full PvP in first person
- Huge game world measuring more than 350,000 square miles
- Character advancement and career paths
- Strategic systems driven by player missions and command
- Growing list of 130+ historically accurate weapons including aircraft, tanks, trucks, rifles, machine guns and more!
- Groundbreaking physics and damage modeling
The game is developed by Cornered Rat Software, Playnet Inc's internal software development studio.
Main Article: History of Battleground Europe
Initial release
After a lengthy closed beta stage, World War II Online went live on June 6, 2001 under the campaign title Blitzkrieg. The release was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the D-Day: Operation Overlord invasion of Normandy.
The initial launch had a number of technical difficulties. The game required a 70 MB update to be downloaded before they could play online. At the time, the majority of users had 56k modems, requiring around 3 hours to update the game. As the developers worked feverishly behind the scenes to complete other promised features and fix the software bugs on the gold CD, even more updates became necessary.
Statements from both the developer (CRS), and publisher (Strategy First), indicated that CRS wanted a longer open beta, but the game was launched anyway, due to financial reasons.
Despite the problems in the early release, the development team continued to support and improve the game, through frequent patch releases, upgraded servers and periodic investment in improved network infrastructure.
Re-release
WWII Online recently completed a third retail release under the new campaign title Battleground Europe. This new title was chosen because of legal considerations with the old title of Blitzkrieg, whose trademark was owned by another game. The Battleground Europe re-release was distributed across Europe in late 2005 and in the US in early 2006 by the game's new publishers GMX Media (Europe) and Matrix Games (USA). Battle.jpg
The launch of Battleground Europe included an extensive open beta, and was based largely on a proven product. As such, it was met with considerably more favorable reviews in the media.
