Square Enix unveils WWII PC wargame

Square Enix is making a bid for the Western PC wargaming market this year with a Second World War strategy title called Order of War.

The game promises huge scale as it examines the war in Europe in 1944 on both western and eastern fronts. In the single-player campaigns, you'll fight as the Americans pushing the Germans back in the west, and as the Germans repelling the Russian Red Army in the east. There will also be multiplayer Deathmatch and Skirmish modes.

Order of War is developed by Wargaming.net, the London and Belarus-based developer that made Galactic Assault and the Massive Assault series.

Although the press release doesn't make the exact nature of the gameplay in Order of War clear, Wargaming.net has a history of turn-based global domination games, and there's the promise that players will command an entire 1000-unit army at once in cinematic and historically accurate battles.

This suggests that Square Enix is making a bid for the serious, historical wargaming of Total War, rather than attempting to enter the overcrowded real-time strategy market.

Order of War will also mark Square Enix's first release of a Western-developed game outside of Japan when it's published simultaneously across multiple territories in the autumn of 2009.

Check out the trailer on EGTV and head to the Order of War website for strident military music and much more.