It also lets Sandstorm have a robust customization feature. Ultimately, the fictional premise allows New World more flexibility when it comes to the type of weapons, equipment, and infantry it wants to use in the game. Now you can play as indigenous fighters, but also as special operations, as mercenaries, and all these different things.” “That’s a big deal: You never play as an Iraqi in a game about the Iraq War, right? Unless you’re the insurgents or the rebels or the terrorists. And we found interesting stuff, like the weapons that are being used by various factions, the vehicles, the kinds of air support and fire support you encounter.” It’s all been like Iraq and Afghanistan pre-2008. “There hasn’t really been a game about that. “I interviewed local fighters and learned about how the concept of insurgency evolved from 2010 to 2018,” said Tsarouhas. Level designers then used the videos, which depict hectic gunfights as well as moments of downtime, as reference for building out Sandstorm’s multiplayer maps. For example, another one of their consultants provided them with GoPro footage from recent fighting in Iraq.
While Sandstorm depicts a made-up war, the developers spent a lot of time researching actual conflicts (like those happening in Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan) and talking to ex-soldiers to make sure it feels like a credible campaign. “The core Insurgency experience is still there, where people die really quickly and you have to work together and play as a team,” said Tsarouhas.
It keeps the same elements that made the first game so compelling - a minimal HUD, realistic gunplay, and objective-based modes - and adds in a number of new features, including bigger maps and armed vehicles.
With more than five million copies sold, it was only a matter of time before New World set out to make a sequel.Ĭoming to PC on December 12 (with a console version following in 2019), Insurgency: Sandstorm is set in a fictional conflict in the Middle East, with players fighting for either the government-led Security forces or the Insurgents. That game, which was simply called Insurgency, came out in 2014 on PC and quickly became popular among players looking for a hardcore multiplayer shooter.
That realism has been a core part of the studio’s DNA since its founding in 2010, when Jeremy Blum (one of the minds behind the 2007 Half-Life 2 mod Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat) brought back some of his fellow modders to make a standalone version of their creation. It’s just one of many stories that New World has heard from veterans who play its games. “It was so intense that it brought him to tears.”
“He heard the mortar shells landing, and he said he never heard it so realistically depicted - this ‘wet thwap’ I think was the way he described it, the smack, the slap of it against the ground,” said Tsarouhas. Army who fought in Afghanistan, told him that one particular sound effect in the game triggered a profound emotional reaction. Lead game designer Michael Tsarouhas knew they were on the right path when one of their military consultants, a former soldier in the U.S. The indie studio only cares about one thing: making sure that Insurgency: Sandstorm is one of the most intense and yet rewarding multiplayer experiences you’ll ever have. New World Interactive isn’t interested in creating yet another generic shooter.