As revealed on the official Operation Flashpoint facebook page, Operation Flashpoint: Red River will be launching on June 7th in the U.S. If you happened to live in Europe, you are extremely lucky as the game releases in Europe this month on April 21st.
This is the official post on the page: “In light of the recent press announcement we can confirm that Red River will ship in North America on 7th June and in EMEA on 21st April. We will be announcing more information soon.”
If you have not heard of Operation Flashpoint, well, now you know. But in case you don’t know what it is about, read this on before you dismiss it as another military shooter.
Operation Flashpoint is a tactical military combat simulator. It is a first person shooter where you lead your squad into battle using true-to-life commands in accurately created battles. In this game, you are not a super-solider with dumbed down enemies. You are a marine on a hostile battlefield and your job is to lead your squad and tactical support to victory.
In this game, the weapons are as close to real-life as you can get. Handguns are not cheap sidearms, for example. They can be very effective when you need them. Just a single round from an M-16 assault rifle is enough to take down a hardened enemy soldier. It is entirely depending on where the bullet hits the soldier, what is the range, etc. Likewise, the same thing can happen to you. The overall look-and-feel is similar to Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms franchise. Of Course, Operation Flashpoint is using modern military combat which include tanks, jeeps helicopters, APC’s, ant-tank machine guns, etc.
Operation Flashpoint has had a very strong name to the PC audience and so, the franchise has remained alive. In 2009, Codemasters released Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising on the PC, PS3, and 360. While some veterans of the franchise found a few rough edges, new-comers, like myself, found it to be a challenging and rewarding experience in a world full of shooter.
Being how popular shooter are now, it is nice to see a different and more challenging change of pace that has you use your brain in addition to your shooting skills. The premise of that particular game was interesting as the chinese become aggressive int he thirst for fuel and this aggression put the world on the brink of major military conflict with the Russians. The single-player had a very solid 15 hour length which included some interesting missions to. One such mission was a surgical strike mission where you had to recon a high-ranking PLA military leader to a radio station, send an airstrike in, and destroy both the station and the leader then make your way to the extraction point. The game also featured a co-op mode and the intense challenge of playing the game with all the aids turned off.
While this all sounds intimidating, the game is designed for new comers, avid gamers, and fans of the franchise. Operation Flashpoint: Red River will continue this rewarding military tradition in June.
So are you excited for this game? What do you think? Have you played any of the Operation Flashpoint games before?
Also, the Operation Flaspoint team can be found on Youtube, twitter, and Facebook.