WarTorn
Description official description
WarTorn is a 3D real-time strategy game with modern-day units.
In a particularly twisted kind of background story, the ruling elites of the future (2999) rediscover the war games of the distant past (Ancient Rome) as a model for sports-like wars set in the not-so-distant past (2000), which to us is now.
This was the easy part of WarTorn. The cynical controlled war in giant sports arenas scenario serves as the backdrop for a 3D real-time strategy game which pits up to eight armies against each other in a fairly complex system of build-and-blast.
The economic system, for example, has its own flow chart in the manual which describes the interrelation of no less than eight resources, four of which must be gathered on the map. The army consists of land, air and sea units which can be individually constructed from parts. The tactics system comes with its own formation editor and attack route planer. Each unit's behavior can be fine-tuned with ten different commands.
Most of this is optional though. Players can choose between strategy matches (full war with base construction) and skirmishes (baseless mini-wars with up to 20 select units per side). There's no campaign or plot, just single matches in four different modes (deathmatch, capture the flag, hunter hunted, and turn-based) or five-tier tournaments with which the player climbs up the world cup ladder.
Despite the game's competitive character, there is no multiplayer mode.
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Trivia
WarTorn was announced in early 1998 as one of the first RTS games to make the jump from 2D to 3D. When it finally came out in late 2000 though, it was outdated: Games like Myth: The Fallen Lords and Warzone 2100 had since pioneered the 3D RTS sector. WarTorn went under.
The game's .ini file indicates that a multiplayer mode had been planned: it contains setup and IPX information and even a server link (wartorncentral.eyst.com). However, there is no mention of multiplayer matches on the box, in the manual, let alone in the game.
Virgin didn't bother to include a printed manual with the European versions of WarTorn. It's on the CD as a PDF file.
The controlling body of the war games in WarTorn is called FIWA (Federated International War Association) - likely a spoof of FIFA, the world soccer association.
On the WarTorn CD is a folder called \EXTRAS with PSD files of the unit cameo textures and logos, for players who want to create their own designs.
Note from a Developer of the Game
It is accurate that the entire point of the game was to be a multiplayer experience, with major Tournaments planned, etc.
However, the grind down to remove all multi-player bugs and performance issues meant that we had to ship it as a single-player game. This makes absolutely no sense, except when you consider that people lost a great deal of wealth attempting just to complete the game without a publisher.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by -Chris.
Additional contributors: Christian Schladetsch.
Game added February 19, 2006. Last modified May 24, 2024.