Play as a German-Axis FPS Game

[Stavroforos]

Well, CoD: WaW gave you the option to kill unarmed Germans as a Soviet to show you the dark side of war and of that particular conflict, I suppose they could make a "burn the village and execute old ladies" level for the Germans fighting anti-partisan warfare.

[General Maximus]

I will surely buy such game. In fact my hands are itching to play as the Wehrmacht or the IJA/IJN.

But I would rather prefer the Imperial Germany of WW1. That is because there was no 'evil Nazi' and German hatred. Germany had the most powerful and yet disciplined army and second rank in navy (Britain being first). I would like my player to speak "Fur den Kaiser und Vaterland!" instead of "Heil Hitler".

Besides, Germany and Japan are my favorite countries, Germany in particular.

So the overall answer is: Yes, I will definitely buy any game that allows me to play as the Germans or the Axis

[klesh]

Iron Front - Liberation 1944 is playable as the Germans. It's got a pretty bad campaign and the game community is dead, but it really is fun to play. If you see it on sale, go for it.

[Holger Danske]

Considering the most famous and interesting memories of the WWII have been written by german soldiers and officers. There is plenty to do for a such game.

There is. Sadly there is no market for such a game and no Gamedevs have the balls to do it properly.

[Tankfriend]

Considering that in this thread alone we have a poll result of ~92% voting for yes in a ~400-people poll group, I wouldn't say that there's no market. We don't have decisive statistical data, of course, but the general tendency is quite remarkable.

Apart from that, the FPS market is alive and well, and the current rush into "Modern Warfare" games only means that there's a break for people to get hot for WWII FPS games, again.

So the way I see it, the main problem is that the developers lack the balls to do it, as you put it, but not that people wouldn't be interested in it.

[Stavroforos]

I can't really blame them, it's too touchy a subject for mainstream companies.

[Pope Gregorius I]

WW2 has been done to death already. If you want to play as Germans in WW2 it's already been done, one of the Company of Heroes expansions has you playing as the Nazis. One of the complaints of reviewers was that you felt distinctly unheroic gunning down Brits and Yanks

A WW1 game would be excellent though, without any of the ethical dilemnas thrown up by the whole Germans ethincally cleansing a bunch of folks in WW2.

The Company of Heroes German army campaigns were awesome! I was not very happy that the original didnt have one of comparable length to the rediculously repetitive and cliche "American" Campaign. the Tales of Valor campaign (only three episodes ) did a terrific job of representing the idea of fighting for your brothers in arms, not for some lunatics ideology, by defending the position to save as many men from death (even if the Allies are objectively on the just side).

Playing as the Soviets disgusted me in COD WaW. I enjoyed the gameplay itself, but at the end of the campaign, I felt an admiration for the Werhmacht troopers I was gunning down. In a nutshell, Soviets represent the complete destruiction of culture and humanity, whereas the the Germans were still a culturally and traditionally respectable people, Nazis be damned. But try telling your average liberal American or Westerner that...

[sickpeople]

We could play as raping and pillaging soviet soldiers, why not as german ones?

[General Maximus]

The Company of Heroes German army campaigns were awesome! I was not very happy that the original didnt have one of comparable length to the rediculously repetitive and cliche "American" Campaign. the Tales of Valor campaign (only three episodes ) did a terrific job of representing the idea of fighting for your brothers in arms, not for some lunatics ideology, by defending the position to save as many men from death (even if the Allies are objectively on the just side).

Playing as the Soviets disgusted me in COD WaW. I enjoyed the gameplay itself, but at the end of the campaign, I felt an admiration for the Werhmacht troopers I was gunning down. In a nutshell, Soviets represent the complete destruiction of culture and humanity, whereas the the Germans were still a culturally and traditionally respectable people, Nazis be damned. But try telling your average liberal American or Westerner that...

I agree. I wanted to play as the Germans in CoD: WaW, instead of Russians. And after the last stage i.e. Berlin and the Reichstag, it sparked interest into me that if Germany was so superior in WW2, it would have been even more superior in WW1 (and it was). Nazis, well...Nazis were an 'organization' which ruled over the Germans. And their leader was a German speaker but not from Germany itself.

Besides, looking in a gamey way, German army looked a lot more better with awesome uniforms, the Stahlhelm (although I like the WW1 Stahlhelms more), their guns, especially their marching style and music.

Playing as the Russian army was....meh. It was large but poor. Although I HAVE to say, Reznov is a awesome!

[CoconutFred]

We could play as raping and pillaging soviet soldiers, why not as german ones?

Can't you play as the Germans in Red Orchestra 2 (which is still very alive online, believe it or not)? The only problem is that there's no civilians to pillage or rape.

[leviath]

Can't you play as the Germans in Red Orchestra 2 (which is still very alive online, believe it or not)? The only problem is that there's no civilians to pillage or rape.

Nobody seems to understand that people ask for a CAMPAIGN as german. We already know billions of FPS where you can play german in MP.

[saxdude]

I wonder how many of the voters are actually interested in playing from the german perspective for a comprenhensive sort of view, with all the negatives it entails, and how many others just want to be edgy and think the Wermacht was somehow any much beter than the SS.

[SLN445]

Sometimes you just want the option to play as the otherside without Bias, rather then just playing countless games were you are the heroic American Liberators getting rid of Baby eating nazis.

The type of game you only seem to get in the Strategy Genre.

[Stavroforos]

I wonder how many of the voters are actually interested in playing from the german perspective for a comprenhensive sort of view, with all the negatives it entails, and how many others just want to be edgy and think the Wermacht was somehow any much beter than the SS.

If you actually see what most people are saying, hardly anybody wants an Axis SP campaign to deal with all the negatives it would entail, so I would say it's just the standard Germanophilia present in the West and especially in Britain and America, who experienced little of the brunt of the war.

[The Despondent Mind]

I would gladly play an SP campaign .

[CoconutFred]

Nobody seems to understand that people ask for a CAMPAIGN as german. We already know billions of FPS where you can play german in MP.

Might be a reply to an old post, but RO2 does have a german campaign. It's the entire first half of the RO2 campaign.

[EmperorBatman999]

Which is hardly a campaign in the first place.

And anybody else getting tired of this talk of wanting an Axis Campaign? The more people talk about it, the less meaning it has to me.

[saxdude]

It seems more like a fetish for ww2 germans, especially with comments like these:

Playing as the Soviets disgusted me in COD WaW. I enjoyed the gameplay itself, but at the end of the campaign, I felt an admiration for the Werhmacht troopers I was gunning down. In a nutshell, Soviets represent the complete destruiction of culture and humanity, whereas the the Germans were still a culturally and traditionally respectable people, Nazis be damned. But try telling your average liberal American or Westerner that...

The germans dont deserve a proper WW2 campaign because doing a campaign entails very dark things of which removing them would do a disservice (whitewashing the Nazis, dont give me that nonsense that the Wermacht was that much better than the SS) and leaving them would open a risk for backlash and cheap storytelling for the sake of edgyness and shock.

I can see it work, but not like this nonsense nazi wanking that that a lot of these posters seem to subvertly want.
Lets be straightforward, have it be the germans in Poland, in France, in Italy, in Russia; It should be dark, it should be dead serious, and the beggining, middle, and end should be sad and painful for all sides, show the arses and the bastards, show the passive racism to the downright obscene cruelty, show your character with actual faults and in the flaming ruins of Berlin, have him regret the hell out of everything, have him cry, have him suffer, not flee to the allies or die heroically against all odds like a million FPS. Dont whitewash and cherrypick like some posters suggest, but have the character redeem himself in an actual meaningful way. Have him earn it, not owe it because he was just "following orders". Redeem the german, not the Nazi.
From what I can tell, game developers are far from ready for that kind of straightforward complex story telling. Hell has there actually been any medium that tried it to full effect?

Same goes for the japanese, but nobody cares about the japanese amirite guys? aah? aaah? yeah, thought so.

[Stavroforos]

Excellent post, sax. I think a German campaign would be doable if it had the appropriate tone. I mean, look at the Soviet WaW campaign, which was already pretty dark in tone, gave your character faults, etc. This would have to be done but on an even more serious and dark level to properly encompass a German campaign, because anything else is just a disservice to history. It will be important that the player's character not be part of some mythical resistance movement or non-compliance movement, but rather someone who is caught up in the historical events and feelings of the time. There will have to be some level of redemption in the end, because as you say they should redeem the Germans, not the Nazis, and showing all the crimes that both committed will actually make this redemption matter and have depth.

[Sir Adrian]

Not every german soldier in the war was a clone of Skeletor the pissed pure malevolence and ate kittens for breakfast. Some of them were just doing their duty, most of them didn't even want to be there.

Yes, there were numerous, unspeakable, atrocities committed, on both sides. It has been a constant in every war since the dawn of time, and will remain so until the end of days, that's why was is considered to be such a horrible thing. Need I remind you how the Soviets pretty much one-upped the Germans at every turn when it came to gratuitous cruelty and torture? And let's not even mention the western allies.
But somehow it is entirely OK to ignore all of this, and paint the winners with golden glow of benevolence and moral perfection, despite obvious evidence to the contrary; yet every german soldier has to seek redemption for being conscripted into his country's army during wartime, or it would be a disservice to history. Textbook definition of hypocrisy.