User:USHistoryCollector/War of Rights

War of Rights is a historical first-person shooter video game developed by Campfire Games.

Gameplay
War of Rights is a historically accurate First Person Shooter set during the Maryland Campaign of the American Civil War. The game is multiplayer, with a handfull of game modes: Drill Camp, Picket Patrol, and Skirmish. The game features two distinct branches, Infantry and Artillery. Artillerists man the cannons, but do not have access to muskets. Likewise, Infantryman are restricted to a muzzleloading (or in specific regiments Breechloader) rifle or a smoothbore musket, and their bayonet. Within the regiments of Artillery and Infantry, there are four classes to choose from: Officer, NCO, Flag Bearer and Private, each with rather self-explanitory roles that help create a game where historically-accurate formations and tactics, such as volley fire, are used and viable. The maps in the game are from three different battles fought during the Maryland Campaign: the Battle of Harpers Ferry, Battle of South Mountain, and the Battle of Antietam. All of these maps contain several sub-maps, which contain famous parts of the campaign, such as the famous Bloody lane at antietam, and some fictionous scenarios, such as the bulk of the Harpers Ferry submaps.

Ticket System
The basic gameplay is rather straight forward. The game utilizes a ticket based morale system, and rewards players for staying in line. When a player stays in a formation, they cost only 1 of the teams tickets. When a player dies in Skirmishing (3-5 players near each other) they cost the team 3 tickets. An Out Of Line (0-2 players nearby) costs a total of 5 tickets. However, running out of tickets does not end the game. The game is won or lost by control of the "Point", usually a good defendable position on a map. The defending team must hold the point, and not let it get fully captured, in order to win. If one of the two teams runs out of tickets, however, it triggers a "game ending event". During this, tickets no longer matter. If the defending team runs out of tickets, they will have no more respawns. This is called "Last Stand". If the attacking team runs out of tickets, the game timer reduces to 4 minutes. This is called "Final Push". If the attacking team captures the point when the defenders are on Battle Ready, Engaged, or Taking Losses, the original defenders will go into "counter attack mode". In this mode, the main timer is paused on the game, and is replaced with a "counterattack timer". The length of the counterattack timer is determined by the morale status of the original defending team. However, if the defending team is on the Morale level called "Breaking: or "Last Stand" when the attackers take the point, the game ends immediately. The game is a point based one, but the ticket system ensures that players are forced to stick to the tactics of the civil war in order to win. The game cannot be won by a single soldier running out of line.

Combat Mechanics
Fighting mechanics are also relativity simple. The Bayonet can be affixed to any musket, other than a carbine. A Bayonet deals 50 damage to an opponent, meaning that two bayonet stabs are required to kill an enemy. Clubs are also a viable weapon. You can use any rifle, musket, or carbine as a club by entering melee mode without a fixed bayonet. Clubbing an opponent deals 35 damage, requiring three strikes to kill an opponent. Sgt Major NCO and all officers are equipped with swords, which do the same damage as a Bayonet. For shooting, all of the weapons are reasonably effective to around 150 yards. The only exception would be the smoothbore Springfield M1842, but that weapon features the Buck and Ball rounds, capable of mass destruction at close ranges. Reloading also takes slightly longer than real life. A trained soldier could reload a musket in 20 seconds, however an in game solider takes nearly a full 30 seconds to reload. Officers get a revolver, but cannot reload the cylinder after all shots are fired. However, each bullet is a one-shot kill.

Another important part of combat mechanics is in game suppression. If an artillery shell or bullet lands, or flies, close to a character, they receive something called suppression. Suppression turns the screen slightly black and white, and makes the character shake, and thus making guns much harder to aim. Suppression is greatly reduced when standing in formation with friendly soldiers.

Development
On October 15th, 2015, War of Rights was announced by the studio Campfire Games. The game was unique among first-person shooters in that it was crowdfunded. Less than a month later, on November 11th 2015, Campfire Games annouced that War of Rights had been fully funded, with over 1,700 early backers. The game was pre-released on Steam on December 3rd, 2018, and is still currently in development.

Reception
On the game's steam page, War of Rights scores "Very Positive" on it's reviews

The War of Rights was featured in a Vice News article in November of 2015, with the author criticizing the game's political landmine nature, and slow pace.