Forged Battalion is a Real-Time Strategy game by Command & Conquer makers, former Westwood Studios company Petroglyph Games and published by Team17. Its main selling point is players ability to fully customize their faction to suit their needs.
The story is loosely based on the canceled End of Nations. Towards the end of 21st century, global climate change causes governments across the world to collapse. However, an inventor named Milos Thymos develops Modular Manufacturing Plant (MMP) technology, which offers near limitlessness resources, energy and manufacturing capacity. He offers to give this technology for free... as long as everyone makes him their new ruler. Most of the people take the offer, but a few communities refuse. However, Milos is not unreasonable. He gives the rest of the world 20 years to decide. After that, he will make the decision for them.
20 years have now passed, and the Collective, Milos' faction, has begun to close in on the remaining independent communities. However, resistance is starting to form with the capture of one of the MMP control centers.
This game contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The game takes place at the end of 21st century
- Attack Drone: Air units are unmanned drones.
- Armor Is Useless: Averted. Different types of weapons deal different damage values against certain types of armor, so you want to make sure you got troops that can deal with whatever the opponent is throwing at you.
- Artificial Brilliance: When attacking an AI base, its allies will send troops to attack your troops in the back, creating a pincer formation. AI will also target large groups of units with superweapons and even hold back if it can't find a worthwhile target.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Collective generals follow this trope, driving a larger-sized unit equipped with their preferred weapon.
- Command & Conquer Economy: What did you expect people who made Command & Conquer?
- Colour Coded Armies: Due to all factions sharing the same aesthetic, this is the main way to identify who the unit belongs to.
- Deadly Gas: Toxic weapons operate via this, either firing clouds of gas or lobbing shells that create poisonous clouds. Aberthany of Snake Collective is also very fond of these.
- Crapsack World: By the early 21st century, the world has descended into chaos due to climate change, overpopulation, and conflict. Though Thymos and his newly formed Collective have stablized the situation with Modular Manufacturing Plants, Collective forces brutalize nations and settlements that have opposed joining the Collective through the use Weapons of Mass Destruction.
- Design-It-Yourself Equipment: This is the major draw of the game; players can design their own units and choose their superweapons and buffs.
- Face–Heel Turn: Dallas decides that he has had enough of you and defects to the Collective.
- Featureless Protagonist: The player starts out as one, with Dallas and Allied Soldiers doing most of the dialouge. Even when the game gives you a communication avatar, the only thing we know about the commander is that he sounds male and is dressed in full combat fatigues that obscure most of their body.
- Fun with Acronyms: Joint Strategic Operations Network (JSON), which doubles as a reference to the real-world computer technology known as JSON
. - Fog of War: Players can see terrain from the start, but cannot see any unit or buildings that might be outside their visual range.
- Geo Effects: In addition to standard elevation, we also have following:
- Irradiated land: Units that are not radiation shielded take consistent damage.
- Mud: Heavy vehicles slow down unless they are hovercraft.
- Water: Only flying and hovering or flying units can cross.
- Toxic clouds: Any unit not equipped with hazmat equipment takes damage when traveling through.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Even in the player commander's own diaries, they can't help but admit that they understand why some nations joined Collective for the promise of food and shelter for their citizens.
- La Résistance: The player's faction in the campaign. It starts with the player's newfound resistance group siezing control of a MMP, before taking the fight and effectively kicking out the Collective from the former United States and joining up with other resitance figures to take the fight to the Collective in Europe.
- Liberty Over Prosperity:
- Dallas argues against this, noting that freedom from the Collective means very little if you are starving in the winter.
- Macross Missile Massacre: One of the superpowers is Rocket Barrage, which fires a series of missiles at the given point.
- Mini-Mecha: Infantry wears what looks to be AMP suits.
- Puzzle Boss: Aberthany has her base covered in a toxic cloud that damages player units, even if they are equipped with hazmat gear. In order to attack the base, the player needs to locate Aberthany, who is hiding one of the gas clouds dotted around the map, and kill her.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Collective has a red-and-black color scheme, in contrast of the blue color scheme of the resistance.
- Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: Nuclear missiles have a 'very'' small radius and don't even leave behind irradiated land. They are, however, very effective in the small area they do hit.
- Tank Goodness: You can customize combat vehicles into a decent variety of tank types (albeit they aren't called tanks but you can name them as such). From simplistic cannon armed light tanks to heavily armoured vehicles mounting Plasma Cannons, a player isn't spoiled for choice when it comes to customzing their own vehicles.
- Tech Tree: Winning battles gives technology points that players can use to unlock new technologies that they can then use when designing their units.
- Theme Naming: Each region that the Collective controls is named after a totem pole animal.