Players take the role of a US squad commander and will lead his troops into different conflicts. Squads are comprised of four people each, and eventually the player will have four of them (making a total of 12 soldiers, including themselves) later into the game. Although commands may be issued, like flanking a gun emplacement or laying suppressive fire, the AI is programmed to be smart enough to act on its own. Should your soldiers lose faith in your leadership because you're sending them out to be killed, they might ignore your commands altogether. On the brighter side, if you're not interested in constantly micromanaging squads, the computer should be intelligent enough to act in its own interest and survive without constant direct input. The AI is set up with maneuvers taken from the USMC handbook to create an authentic experience.

Keep in mind that even though the game is clearly being designed for a hardcore audience, the game will include aspects to make the game approachable for rookie players. Lowering the difficulty to "Easy" updates the interface to include icons indicating where enemies are located. However, the damage done by weapons remains the same. Additionally, the game recognizes location based damage, meaning that a single headshot could potentially kill you. Wearing a helmet may protect you, but the hit will leave you temporarily dazed. Similarly, being hit in the leg will impede your movement speed. Critical injuries will cause you to bleed out, and once your character will die after losing eight pints of blood. Severe injuries may also cause the player to black out. The best you can do is use your med kit to bandage the injury so you don't die from blood loss, but there's no such thing as a full miraculous recovery while in combat. Morphine can be injected to temporarily overcome the pain and increase movement. Characters will be brought back to 100% between engagements when they go back to base.

During the presentation, we were shown single button commands to order soldiers to flank enemy gun placements. However, the scenario also illustrated how the leader needs to concentrate and remain active, since the soldiers will stop to curse you out if you neglect to lay down suppressive fire. The game will also feature realistic destruction, so the tires can be shot out from beneath jeeps to send them out of control. Players will also have heavy ordinance at their disposal, and one mission will have them calling down artillery fire on a position. Again, Dragon Rising uses a more realistic approach toward explosions and grenades. Smoke and dirt fly up into the air, obscuring vision, instead of a huge flash of fire seen in movies.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is scheduled to release in September for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A demo that takes place on one of the smaller island areas will be out before the official launch, so players will have a chance to catch an early look and find out how well they fare in realistic combat situations.