Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

The game features four server settings called Play Styles: Custom, Action, Realistic and Classic. Classic is based on the original Red Orchestra, Realism is the standard mode and Action is more forgiving than Realism or Classic. All maps and theaters of Rising Storm/Red Orchestra 2 GOTY support Multiplayer Campaign, Territory Control and Countdown. Some maps don't support Firefight. Singleplayer is unable to be played directly from or within the Multiplayer installation of the game.

Rising Storm/Red Orchestra 2 is a realistic first-person shooter. Guns behave realistically, with bullet drop and spin taken into account. The game also takes away many of the elements of a traditional HUD, like an ammo counter, forcing players to remember, or manually check, the approximate number of rounds that are left in the gun's magazine. When reloading a weapon, the character checks the weight of the new magazine and determines if it is heavy (full or close to full) or light (empty or close to empty).[5] The game's first-person cover system allows players to hide behind all objects in the world to avoid gunfire. While in cover, players can peek out to take more accurate shots or fire blindly. However, the shape, size, and composition of the object changes its effectiveness at protecting the player. Smaller objects may not cover the player's entire body, and some may not stop bullets. Health does not regenerate over time or by use of medical equipment, but non-fatal wounds must still be bandaged so no more health is lost through blood loss.[6]

The player gains "Kill Points" and "Honor Points" which level up his weapons and the Honor level of each class AKA the class level. The game features a limited number of slots for each of its various classes for the Soviet army, Wehrmacht army, Imperial Japanese and the US Marine Corps. Each class is based on a historical role of the respective army in that time frame.

Typical classes include:

• Commander,
• Squad Leader,
• Sniper or Marksman,
• Assault and/or Elite Assault,
• Rifleman and Elite Rifleman,
• Engineer,
• Anti-tank soldier,
• Tank Crewman, Tank Commander, Light Mortar, etc.

depending on the army, map, date and theater of war the player is in. Players who level up their classes enough will change in appearance to very closely resemble the level 1 look of the enemy team in color and uniform. Leveling up your weapons means you will gain up to two additional upgrades (level 1 weapon with 1 chevron; level 25 weapon (2nd Chevron upgrade); Level 50 (maximum level, 3 Chevrons) to your weapon, usually a bayonet or magazine related upgrade. Leveling up your weapons also means that you will get steadier aim, less recoil, faster cycling and reloading of any gun etc. etc. Leveling a class' Honor level also means you will receive better weapons, pistols, enemy loadouts and after a certain level you become a "hero" of that class (e. g. Rifleman Hero), giving you a more closer look to an enemy of the same class as well as all their weapons and much improved versions of weapons you already have. Class and weapon level affect how much stamina you lose and how suppressed you get (your aim starts to wobble with each enemy shot, grenade or other explosive more, vision gets grey-shaded and blurry) when shot at by an enemy player. A player of a high Honor level in a class receives much less suppression than one of a basic Honor level, and Heroes are able to spread their resistance to suppression to nearby teammates. Every team has a number of squads making up a 64 player team. Sometimes based on certain specializations like: some squads are composed of Mortar operators, sniper rifle guys, tank crews etc. Each squad is composed of 2-9 players depending on the purpose of that squad and all those squads make up a 32 player team, in a maximum player count of 64 players any server. Every squad has a squad leader, even a tank commander which are their own unique classes. A team is a platoon and has a platoon leader called a Commander. Commanders can call in support abilities like mortars, artillery, rocket artillery and naval artillery (wherever marked on a map by them or a Squad Leader) and use abilities like recon planes to spot enemies, Force Respawn to immediately respawn the whole team, and in Pacific themed maps, personally lead Banzai charges with a Katana.

Every team starts out with around 400-600 tickets (to simulate reinforcing a battalion) called reinforcements, with each game lasting around 30 minutes to 2 hours. In Territory Control (TE) maps, players have to attack the control points of a defending team which are usually large landmarks and other large zones of capture players must enter. The team with the most people in a capture point will start capturing the point for their team, unless they are killed while trying to attack or defend it. Players may choose to respawn on a number of spawn points or at a particular role in the squad (machinegunner, squad leader) as the role they select, and respawn in waves that spend the team's reinforcement tickets. The team to wipe out the opposing side with no reinforcements left or by completing all of the objectives indicated on the Map screen wins (capturing and destroying objectives).

There are tanks, APCs, artillery and recon planes in Red Orchestra 2. The interiors of each tank are fully recreated with either a human or AI manning each station. The level of detail was described by Tripwire's president John Gibson as rivaling or exceeding tank simulation games.[7] Because of the extensive work required to recreate each vehicle, which Tripwire estimates to take three months each, the game launched with two tanks: the German Panzer IV Ausf. G and Soviet T-34/76. In April 2014 the Game of the Year addition was released with a new game mode search and destroy, new maps and two armored personal carriers were added into the game for the German and Soviet sides respectively. These are the German Sd.Kfz. 251 and the British Universal Carrier with a mounted DP-27 machine gun used by the Soviets.[8] These additions gave infantry more protection and a quick alternative for moving around the battlefield. Two more tanks, the German Panzer III Ausf. M and the Soviet T-70 along with the MG42 German machinegun were added in the Armored Assault free DLC.[5]

In June 2011, Red Orchestra 2's developer, Tripwire, announced they would be taking an aggressive, three-pronged approach to proactively deal with cheating. Red Orchestra 2 would be using a combination of three anti-cheat services; VAC along with Punkbuster and a related service called PBBans.[9] Server operators can choose to use any or none of these services. Tripwire later clarified that Punkbuster for Red Orchestra 2 will have three levels of protection so server operators can optionally make it more or less aggressive in kicking players.[10] A Beta was initiated early on the development process with several phases. First, the Family and Friends Beta for family members and friends of the Tripwire Interactive staff. Then the Beta moved on to include long time clans from Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 and clans new to the game. After this stage, the Beta was opened for anyone that had pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe Edition of the game, which gave the added bonus of participating in the final stage of the Beta.

Rising Storm was released on May 30, 2013 as a standalone expansion to Red Orchestra 2. An optional Digital Deluxe edition is available, and a Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad ownership bonus discount of 25% on the Steam store. A 15% preorder discount was also available. Owners of the original Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad received free access to the rifleman class, whilst buyers of Rising Storm were given the original game as well. As of 2018, both games' content is merged and cannot be bought separately as "Rising Storm/Red Orchestra 2 GOTY" on Steam. The game has had many gameplay and feature updates from 2011 to 2015. The last update released for both games was on October 20th, 2015.

Rising Storm features content based on the Pacific war between the US and Japan. Both sides have distinct weaponry and abilities so as to create an asymmetric gameplay. The Americans have access to high firepower weapons such as semi-automatic rifles, machineguns and flamethrowers. The Japanese are instead equipped with bolt-action rifles, hand-held mortars, mines, katanas and the ability to banzai charge: causing the enemy to be suppressed and have it difficult to fire back to simulate fear, for the duration of the charge.

A sequel, Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, was released on May 30th, 2017.

Some mod teams were given early access to the Steam Development Kit (SDK) and have been developing mods. These mods include In Country Vietnam and Rising Storm, which later went commercial as an agreement between Tripwire Interactive and Rising Storm Team to push the product commercially in case of successful mod development. Another mod called Vehicle Expansion [11] was supposed to be released as an official update for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad with Tripwire Interactive Vice President John Gibson offering to help with programming, however due to modding team owning student licences of 3D Software, it was never released and all work scrapped. Modifications to come out after Rising Storm release are Heroes of the West, set in Western Europe during the campaigns of 1944 and 1945,[12] , which also could've been sold as a DLC, however at a time due to it being released in 2016, was only released as a free mod on Steam and Aufmarsch: The Great War 1914-1918, which includes maps set on both the Eastern and Western Fronts of World War I.[13] There is also the CGT mod that adds classic gametypes such as Capture The Flag and Search & Destroy to the game. The full SDK was made available in January 2012.[14]

The SDK has allowed modders to create many custom maps for the base game, for Rising Storm, and for the game's mods. These maps expand the variety of locations represented in game, adding battles in places like Ukraine, the Caucasus, and various Pacific islands.

Composer Sam Hulick, one of the principal composers for the Mass Effect series, was chosen to score the game.[15] The game features dynamic music system, which will cue different music depending on the state of the battle. The Russian and German sides have their own separate soundtrack.

A standalone expansion pack, titled Rising Storm, was announced in 2010 and released May 30th, 2013. It features the addition of the Pacific Theater and the United States Marine Corps, United States Army, Imperial Japanese Army, and Special Naval Landing Forces as playable factions, as well as new weapons, maps, and gameplay mechanics.

It received mostly positive reception. A sequel, Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, was announced June 2015 and released May 2017.

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic 76/100[16] Review scores Publication Score Destructoid 8/10[17] Edge 7/10[18] GamePro [19] GameSpot 7.5/10[20] GameSpy [21] GameTrailers 7.6/10[22] IGN 8/10[23] PC Gamer (UK) 78%[24] PC PowerPlay 8/10[25]

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[16]

GameSpot gave it a 7.5/10, with a generally positive review only critiquing the game's singleplayer component, stability (citing frequent crashes) and inconsistent, unrefined game mechanics.

Reviewers had generally positive, to mixed feelings about the title. Some would praise its realistic but slightly rough nature, while others would be turned off by it completely. Most common critiques at the time of release besides those aimed at its realism mostly cited problems they might've had with controls, taking cover etc.

• Official website
• Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad at MobyGames