History VideoGame / EndWar

A sequel is said to be in development, but [[http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177872 was put on hold]].

* RedShirts[=/=]{{Mooks}}: "Army troops" are your RedShirts and enemy Mooks. They have no shields and effectively serve no real purpose other than to fight it out between themselves and whichever Special Forces (player units) they stumble upon. The [[WeHaveReserves Force Recon upgrade deploys slightly tougher ones with Fast Attack Vehicles and Tanks to wherever the player needs them.]]

** Modern Day Ballistic Armour provides more protection than Futuristic Nano-composite Armour

** Paris, Moscow and Washington DC also have sporadic anti-aircraft fire and artillery shells flying in the distance, most of the skyscrapers burned down or collapsing and thick smoke covering the sky, signifying the fact that by the time the capital is in a position to be attacked, the defending side must be losing pretty badly.

* UsefulNotes/TheCommonwealthOfNations: After leaving the EU, the UK and Ireland enacted reforms resulting in "The New Commonwealth," which was meant to be a sort of revived British Empire. They're technically neutral, though they've agreed to allow EF forces to be stationed in their countries to protect Uplink clusters.

* UnitedEurope: The European Federation, though it's mentioned that individual countries still exist within it. The UK, Ireland and Switzerland the pretty much only truly independent ones left, waiting it out before the fighting started.

* TheWarToEndAllWars: See the title.

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: A key part of the game's 2020 political scenario is that, as the result of devastation in the Middle East, Russia has become the world's largest supplier of oil and natural gas. At the time of the game's release, this seemed like a plausible scenario. However, the US shale oil boom, which took off after the game's release, resulted in the US blowing past Russia and then Saudi Arabia in oil production, becoming the world's largest oil producer by 2020.

** The Command Vehicle is, while not too great at general combat, quite durable.

* TheSiege: One of the battle types is ''called'' Siege. One faction is defending its capital, but gets no off map support ''of any kind'', including reinforcements. They must keep the attackers from capturing a critical Uplink for about 10 minutes until the cavalry arrives.

...were it so easy.

The story of the game centers around the obvious: WorldWarIII. Set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, major nuclear terrorism in the Middle East in 2016 causes gas prices to skyrocket, with Russia soon after becoming the world's leading supplier in petroleum. In 2017, the [[KillSat orbital anti-ICBM shield]] jointly deployed by the European Union and the United States goes online, supposedly ending the threat of worldwide nuclear war. At the same time, Russia's export of crude oil and energy causes them to experience a significant economic boom period, allowing them to become an international military and economic superpower again. In response to this, Western Europe forges a new charter for the Union, becoming the [[UnitedEurope European Federation]] - with the notable exception of the United Kingdom, who with Ireland forms their own union known as the "New Commonwealth," which remains neutral but allows European forces to man the missile defense uplink sites on its territory. The prologue to the game begins in 2020, with the US about to complete the Freedom Star orbital military platform, which will shift the balance of power - which upsets the EF, who leaves NATO.

For lack of a better word, everything goes wrong from here. [[FalseFlagOperation "Terrorists"]] attack the three superpowers. The US attacks the EF, believing they're funding the terrorists, because Russia planted the evidence. Before those two can compare notes and come to a conclusion, Russia manages to slip in (again, in the guise of the terrorists) and hijack the missile shield with a virus, and the Freedom Star lifter is mistaken for an ICBM by the missile shield and is blown up. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to {{World War III}}.

The game also prides itself on a Voice Command system that allows players to command units with their voice using a simple structure. "Unit 1 Attack Hostile 1" for instance would give your first unit the command to attack the enemy designated as Hostile 1. This system exists in the fluff as the "Overlord" battlefield command system, with the player character intended to be a CO using cutting edge technology to gain an unprecedented, real-time, complete view of the battlefield instead of having the magical birds-eye viewpoint common to RTS games. The camera system reflects this and allows the player to view the battlefield only from the point of view of a highlighted unit as if through a gun-camera they carry (Or through the [=SitRep=] if you have a Command Vehicle, but that view of the battlefield leaves out many, many details, along with unit feedback), causing no small amount of "[[TheyChangedItNowItSucks they changed the genre, now it sucks]]" from some RTS fans. In reverse, fans of the game consider this to have no actual loss of function, especially when physical input and voice commands are used in combination to issue orders as fast as possible.

* TankGoodness: [[http://tomclancy.wikia.com/wiki/M5A2_Schwarzkopf Look]] [[http://tomclancy.wikia.com/wiki/Panther_1A3 at]] [[http://tomclancy.wikia.com/wiki/T-100_Ogre the tanks]]. '''''Look at them.'''''

For lack of a better word, everything goes wrong from here. [[FalseFlagOperation "Terrorists"]] attack the three superpowers. The US attacks the EF, believing they're funding the terrorists, because Russia planted the evidence. Before those two can compare notes and come to a conclusion, Russia manages to slip in (again, in the guise of the terrorists) and hijack the missile shield with a virus, and the Freedom Star lifter is mistaken for an ICBM by the missile shield and is blown up. Presto. {{World War III}}.

[[caption-width-right:350:''"Let the End...Begin."'']]

** Subverted in "Endwar Online" - after ten years of war, [[PhyrricVictory NONE of the factions won]], [[MutuallyAssuredDestruction the war has blasted all of their territories back to the stone age]], [[BalkanizeMe and their former territories have fallen into breakaway states]] [[EnemyCivilWar and civil war]]. Double-Subverted in that the goal of "Endwar Online" is to not just reunite the selected faction, but also to "win the Endwar" [[HereWeGoAgain by conquering the other two factions]].

* AntiInfantry: Riflemen are designed to be this.
* AntiVehicle: Engineers are designed to be this.

** And to a lesser extent, your choice of battalion can limit the amount of units you can deploy. Any others are temporary NewMeat recruits you won't get to keep. The composition depends on what type your battalion is:
*** Airborne: mostly riflemen and gunships with a mediocre amount of engineers and transports. In other words, FragileSpeedster.
*** Mechanized: mostly engineers and transports with a mediocre amount of riflemen and tanks.
*** Armored: mostly tanks and artillery with a mediocre amount of engineers and transports. In other words, MightyGlacier.
*** Tactical: lots of artillery and riflemen. The rest are an equal mix of engineers, gunships and tanks. In other words, this type packs MoreDakka than the others [[GlassCannon but the lack of transports makes it significantly harder to keep enemy gunships away from your hardware]].
*** Assault: the JackOfAllStats with an equal number of units in every type.

* LoopholeAbuse: The [=WMDs=] of each faction exist because of this. The SLAMS satellites are programmed to target and destroy objects on a ballistic trajectory that exceeds the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line Kármán line]] from below - however, the US kinetic strike is launched from a KillSat and thus exceeds the line ''from above'', while the Russian themobaric missile ''is'' launched from the ground but does not fly high enough, resulting in neither being intercepted by the missile shield. And the EF's satellite laser, of course, is an energy beam that cannon be shot down.

* MightyGlacier: Tanks are quite slow and heavily armoured but have no match on the ground.

* EveryBulletIsATracer: All JSF and Spetznaz weapons fire [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience rounds with color-coded tracers]], as do the EFEC's conventional weapons.

* FragileSpeedster: More generally, Europe's forces are more mobile but lack the staying power of the Spetsnaz and the accuracy and MoreDakka of the JSF.

* FragileSpeedster: Gunships can cross over any terrain but are very fragile and can die even to Riflemen in cover.

* {{Eagleland}}: Nice job jumping to conclusions and immediately attacking Europe, US. (To be fair, [[FalseFlagOperation evidence was planted]], and Russia eventually shows its true colors).

...if it were so easy.