1c-company posts

Recently an open beta was released for Men of War Assault Squad, the upcoming WWII RTS game from developer Digitalmindsoft and publisher 1C Company. Today we received word that the open beta will start up again on Steam but only if the game's Steam community page gets to the 20,000 member mark. Not only will the open beta relaunch but it will also add a new playable faction, the Soviet Union, to the beta.

The game's development team has also issued a general update on Men of War Assault Squad, revealing that the team has been working on game balance issues with units and weapons. It also revealed some plans for post-release DLC packs, some of which will be free and some which will be paid content. There's no word yet on when the game will be officially released.

IL-2 Sturmovik has been missing in action for a while now, but it is making a triumphant return with Cliffs of Dover. While it still bears the IL-2 name, this trailer makes Cliffs of Dover look far more advanced. Beautiful terrain, fully modeled cockpits, massive air battles, and realistic simulation are all seen in this trailer, and it's actually making us excited. We almost never get excited about a flight sim, much less one so rigorously realistic.

Download HD IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover Trailer
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The WWII military flying sim series IL-2 Sturmovik will be getting a new entry later this year. Publishers 1C Company and Ubisoft announced today that it would release IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover in March. The game from developer Maddox Games will take place during the Battle of Britain aerial battles over the UK in 1940.

The game will feature over a dozen flyable aircraft from the UK, German and Italian armies. The single player campaign will feature the player taking on the Germans as part of the British Air Force battling it out over London and other parts of Britain, France and Belgium. The game will also feature multiplayer with support for up to a whopping 128 players. Look for graphical support for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 features.

In addition to the regular game there will also be a Collector's Version that will feature a 150 page ring binder with pilot instructions, a replica of the pilot's notes on the Spitfire I Aeroplane and a cloth pilot escape map. You can check out a trailer for the game after the jump:

Publisher Paradox Interactive's latest downloadable expansion pack is now available. It's Majesty 2: Monster Kingdom, the third and final expansion pack for the village sim-RPG game from developer 1C Company. The expansion was previously due to be released last December but got pushed back to this month.

Priced at $14.99, Monster Kingdom adds a new campaign with eight missions called Exiles of Fate. The campaign has you playing an exlied king who has to gather a group of monsters to retake the kingdom. Paradox has also cut the price of Majesty 2 and the first two expansion packs by 75 percent this week.

With The Big Day now less than 10 days away, we are seeing some holiday sales pop up that extend until December 25.

• Impulse has a boatload of games on sale from now until this weekend. For today only it has Duke Nukem 3D on sale for just $1.99.
• GamersGate also has a ton of games on sale from now until the end of the weekend. It also has Star Wolves 3: Civil War on sale for today only for $8.99.
• Direct2Drive has SimCity 4 Deluxe on sale today only for just $4.95.
• From now until December 24 all of 1C Company's games are on sale for 60 percent off their normal prices via the publisher's digital store.
• Ubisoft's online store has a ton of PC games on sale for 33 percent off from now until December 25. For today only it has R.U.S.E on sale for just $12.50.
• EA's online store has a number of its PC download titles on sale for 25 percent off this weekend.
• The Games For Windows Marketplace site has Mahjong Wisdom on sale for the next week for just $2.49.

A few weeks ago, the MCV web site reported that some unnamed brick-and-mortar retailers were not happy with Valve Software's Steam download client being bundled with some PC games. Now an exec from publisher 1C Company has decided to defend Steam in a new editorial.

Darryl Still, the publisher's international publishing director, states that 1C Company decided to keep the download publishing rights for its game in-house because he states, " ... in the English speaking territories – especially in the UK and USA – we saw a massive decline in the way the PC market was being supported by the bricks and mortar retailers."

Now Still feels that those same retailers who are complaining about Steam's reach among the PC game industry are like " ... a small child who threw his toy away because he no longer wanted it, but started screaming as soon as another child picked it up to play with." He talks about how Steam and other download services offer things that traditional retailers. Ultimately Still says, "Steam is here to stay. Retailers needs to communicate and work with publishers, rather than dictate and pontificate to ensure the same can be said for them."

As promised a few weeks ago, the free open beta test for the upcoming WWII RTS game Men of War Assault Squad is now available to download and play via the Steam PC game download service. The beta test comes from developer Digitalmindsoft and publisher 1C Company.

The open beta has two playable factions from the full upcoming game (the US and Germany) as they battle it out on a number of different maps. In addition to gameplay modes like Assault Zone, Combat and Frontlines, up to four players can check out the new Skirmish gameplay modes on two of the beta's maps. There's no word on how long the open beta will last.

The Men of War RTS series has gone through several different versions and one of them, the upcoming Men of War Assault Squad, has just announced that it has started up an open beta test for the WWII tactical RTS game from developer Digitalmindsoft and publisher 1C Company. Previously the developer held a closed beta test where players had to pay to access the beta.

This new free beta test is using Steam as its download client and all folks have to do is have a Steam account and an email address to access the beta. The beta itself features two factions (the USA and Germany) and will let players try out the game's skirmish mode with two maps along with other gameplay modes such as Assault Zone, Combat and Frontlines.

The Steam PC game download service goes back to its traditional mid-week sales event today with the announcement that most of the Theatre of War 2 WWII RTS games have had its price cut by 75 percent from now until Thursday. The games from developer 1C Company include Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943, Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943, and Theater of War 2: Centauro all of which are all priced for just $5 each. Also the new expansion Theatre of War 2 - Battle for Caen is now available on Steam and is priced at 10 percent of at $8.99.

Also on sale from now until Thursday is Frozenbyte's hit puzzle-action game Trine which is priced at just $5 for both the PC and Mac versions. The Mac version of the game is newly released on Steam and as with other Mac games on the service people who own the PC port get the Mac version for free and vise-versa.

Publisher Paradox Interactive has made a bit of a surprise announcement today, revealing that a second downloadable expansion pack for its fantasy RPG-village sim game Majesty 2 is not only in the works but will be released on November 9. Majesty 2: Battles Of Ardania is once again being developed by Inc-co, a subsidiary of 1C Company.

The expansion pack costs $14.99 and contains an all new single player campaign, Heirs of the Night, which has players defending the fantasy world against a "mage-werewolf" and his minions. It will also have four new multiplayer maps, new monsters and new weapon sets.