R.U.S.E. centers on a story of World War II generals looking to outsmart each other and the table represents the strategy board they use to plan out their strategies. The twist is that real-time action is actually happening on the board, and zooming in transforms the board into 3-D landscapes and stacked tiles turn into individually animated units, as one would expect a traditional RTS to look like. The graphics look great no matter what view the player uses. We were told that R.U.S.E. uses over a billion polygons for its rich graphics, while most other games use roughly two million. We're not sure how that will impact the system requirements, but the results at the presentation look amazing.


On the surface, R.U.S.E. plays very much like any other historically themed real-time strategy game. By zooming out, players can get a full strategic view of the map to decide how to properly deploy and move units, but tactical maneuvering is just half the game. Our presenter immediately uses the "Radio Silence" ruse to mask his movements from the enemy. This is one of ten different deceptions all players will have at their disposal to throw other enemies off. In a sense, R.U.S.E. is much like playing a game of poker while moving combat units around. Players need to know how to best use their forces and they need to know when to pull off a nice bluff, like sending in a group of decoys when the real attack is happening elsewhere. There are also abilities that help overcome deceptions, like the decryption ruse, which lets you know the opponent's moves in advance so you can plan an ambush. Enemy units set up so that easy targets can be easily differentiated from hard ones, so players can have a general idea of what forces to send to meet them without necessarily having to be a war game veteran. The game will include 200 units, which cover land, air and sea, so players will have plenty of options when it comes to eliminating rivals.

Multiplayer will support up to eight players, all working together or head-to-head to outmaneuver and outsmart opponents. R.U.S.E. is currently scheduled to release early 2010.