Isonzo News

Today’s Isonzo Intel blog goes into more detail on the Offensive game mode, the history of the first Battle of the Isonzo, and describes how we tailor the gameplay in Isonzo to match the historical challenges soldiers faced on the Italian Front.

[h3]Offensive - Mechanics[/h3]
We described the basics of the Offensive game mode in our first Isonzo Intel - in short, one team will be attacking while the other team will defend. The attackers will need to capture points and demolish key objectives, while the defenders have to stop them. Additionally, offensives are split into multiple battles, where the success or failure of early fights can influence later ones. There’s more to it than this though!

For instance, both attackers and defenders can establish forward posts which allow respawning closer to the action, and the forward posts of the defenders can be demolished by attacking troops. This demolition applies to other aspects of the defence too - heavy machine guns causing trouble? Storm the position and sabotage them to take them permanently out of play!

Building a forward post.

Demolishing objectives is done by the attackers using dynamite - gelatin tubes with a timed fuse. This means there is a possibility for the defenders to defuse them, creating very tense moments with planting and defusing. Objectives include enemy artillery positions and large bunker fortifications as well as ammo dumps, all based on the historical context of the map.

A forward post, established by the attackers.

Another objective type is capture points, which will have to be conquered by the attackers using sheer weight of numbers and a firm presence. This will follow similar rules to what we have done in Tannenberg, where the more people are in a capzone, the faster the capture will go. Objective capture points can however be re-captured by defenders, unlike demolition objectives, and can be spawned on by the attackers if captured. This leads to some interesting strategic decisions for the attackers about which objective to attack first. Permanently destroy difficult demolition objectives, or the more exposed capture points which offer a new spawning location, but are vulnerable to counterattack. Of course you also have to bear in mind that if you take the capture points first, the defenders will naturally concentrate around the demolition objectives - maybe it’s smarter to try for the demolitions earlier? We’re curious what strategies players will come up with!

An artillery piece is demolished in a victory for the attackers.

If the attackers capture a line of defences, there’s a pause in the fighting before the next sector opens up, giving both attackers and defenders a chance to reorganize and prepare for the next onslaught. Defensive engineers can repair gaps in the barbed wire defences, construct additional heavy machine gun nests or add other defensive measures. More about that in a later update!

The Attackers get a fixed number of reinforcement tickets at the start of each sector that is replenished once they have captured all their current objectives, to allow them to renew their attack on the next sector. If the attacker's reinforcement tickets run out but they are in the process of capturing or a dynamite destruction objective is counting down, overtime is triggered: both sides frantically try to win the battle, everything hinging on the active objective. During our developer playtests this has caused some very tense moments!

[h3]Gameplay and Reality[/h3]
Where Verdun and Tannenberg feature battles where both sides attack and defend, for Isonzo we decided that it made more sense to create a game mode where there is one attacking team with multiple objectives to take. We made this decision for a few reasons. Firstly, on the Alpine Front (other than the caporetto breakthrough) there wasn’t a lot of space for massive maneuvering, so anything like the Maneuver mode from Tannenberg wouldn’t make sense.

Look at the work going into moving this gun - and it’s not even a particularly large one!

This means that you don’t get the deep, intricate trench networks of the Western Front, and the back and forth attack-counterattack between trench lines. The amazing landscapes of northern Italy provide a wide range of battlefields with a lot of variety to them - fighting uphill to assault a bunker in the side of a mountain is very different to battling through ruined towns or attempting to cross a river under fire, all of which will be part of Isonzo.

We were drawn in by the fascinating challenges of conducting Alpine warfare with WW1 technology, as well as the sheer variety of different battlefields - everything from the mountains to colorful Italian towns and hard-fought river crossings. We hope our new Offensive game mode will give players more respect for the incredible feats achieved by soldiers on both sides in these enormous battles.

[h3]The First Battle of the Isonzo[/h3]
106 years ago today, the First Battle of the Isonzo was raging. Italy had declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23, about a month before the battle began on June 23. There were around 225,000 Italian Army soldiers massed to assault the positions of 115,000 Austro-Hungarian troops, who were dug-in on high ground along the Isonzo river (also known as the Soča river). The Italians also had 200 artillery pieces - though many were old or obsolete - which put down an intense but short barrage leading up to the attack.

However, the Italian numerical superiority would not be enough. Their commander, Luigi Cadorna, followed a familiar playbook to the early attacks by Western Front commanders, launching a large-scale infantry assault without adequate artillery support once the initial barrage was done. The attack mostly failed to achieve its objectives in the face of determined Austro-Hungarian resistance and counter-attacks. In particular, the Italians made it into the city of Gorizia’s suburbs, but couldn’t break through in the street-to-street urban fighting and had to withdraw. The arrival of Austro-Hungarian reinforcements put an end to the operation on July 7.

Luigi Cadorna, Chief of Staff of the Italian Army. His actions during the war were so controversial that present-day Facebook flagged our post of him as “offensive”!

One silver lining was fairly low casualties for both sides, considering that it was a brute-force frontal assault against prepared positions. The Italians lost in the region of 15,000 troops, while the Austro-Hungarians saw around 10,000 casualties. For context, that’s around a 7% casualty rate, compared to the First Battle of the Marne which saw a roughly 22% casualty rate for both sides. The British casualty rate for the first day of the Battle of the Somme - the deadliest day in the British Army’s history - was close to 50%, with roughly 35,000 wounded and 20,000 dead from the 100,000 or so attacking troops.

Unfortunately the death toll in future battles of the Isonzo would climb steeply, given the rough terrain and the poor leadership of Cadorna. We’ll return to Cadorna another time, but his harsh, often brutal leadership had a severe impact on the morale and effectiveness of the Italian Army. Casualties often forced offensives to be called off early, and this is reflected in the tickets system in Isonzo, just one of many ways we recreate the nature of warfare on the Italian Front.

[h3]And so ends another Isonzo Intel...[/h3]
That’s all for today, but we have lots more details about the game to share, don’t you worry!
And if you would like to help get this game ready, make sure to sign up for the Isonzo Closed Alpha Testing on PC.

There seem to be new recruits on the horizon as well, more about that in the future...

We’ll see you next time for the next Isonzo Intel!

Hello soldiers!

Welcome to the third Isonzo Intel blog! Today is all about weapons - there will be a range of new firearms as well as some returning classics. We’re especially excited about bringing the Italian army’s arsenal to life! Isonzo will include a wide range of weaponry from pistols, sniper rifles and melee weapons to mortars and heavy machine guns. We’re sharing four weapons with you today, starting with a name that you’ll likely be familiar with...

[h3]Beretta 1915[/h3]
This pistol was the first semi-automatic produced by Beretta, and the design is broadly similar to modern versions like the Beretta M9 used by the US Army. The Royal Italian Army found itself in great need of more pistols when it entered WW1 in May 1915, and as such the Beretta 1915 was adopted by the Italians the moment the design was patented in June 1915. Around 15,000 were manufactured during the war, with another 56,000 of an improved 1917 design being produced.



One interesting quirk of the Beretta 1915 is the double manual safeties. There is a slide stop safety on the left of the frame, and a lever at the back of the frame. Both need to be disengaged for the pistol to fire. The rear safety was removed in the 1917 variant, along with other changes that made it lighter, smaller, and simpler.

[h3]Villar Perosa[/h3]
The highly unusual Villar Perosa started out as an air-to-air weapon, to be operated by observers or other secondary crew in aircraft. The high rate of fire and double barrel setup are a direct result of this original purpose, being designed for frenetic aerial combat where you might only have a moment to pour as much lead into your target as possible. It’s actually two complete gun mechanisms coupled together!

However, the 9mm rounds used by the Villar Perosa lacked range and stopping power in the air. Even early-war biplanes weren’t as flimsy as they might look, and rapidly progressing aircraft technology made newer planes increasingly resilient. Of course, the Villar Perosa went on to find a new home with the Italian Army.



In ground combat it could be deployed with a bipod and optional gun shield, and though the high fire rate required some discipline from the gunner, it was found to be very effective at shorter ranges. Despite the unusual design and being fairly heavy to carry, the number of Villar Perosas issued to Italian infantry increased over time.



[h3]Rast & Gasser Model 1898[/h3]
The Rast & Gasser Model 1898 was an Austro-Hungarian service revolver, produced by an Austrian firm based in Vienna. It was a well made and reliable firearm, but some of the design choices were already outdated when the gun was first put into production.

180,000 of these were built from 1898 to 1912, and by the time of WW1 they were in the process of being replaced with semi-automatic pistols - Steyr M1912s for the infantry and Roth–Steyr M1907s for the cavalry. But since production of these newer weapons wasn’t sufficient to fully equip the Austro-Hungarian armed forces, the Rast & Gasser 1898 would remain in use throughout the war.



One of the big drawbacks you’ll experience in-game is the loading-gate through which individual cartridges are loaded, and extracted individually by an extractor rod. This means rather than being able to empty all spent cartridges at once, you have to open the cylinder, use the rod to expel one round and put in a new one, rotate the cylinder, then repeat that process. Eight times! Use your shots carefully with this one, because you really don’t want to have to reload when you’re in the thick of the action!

[h3]Fiat-Revelli Model 1914[/h3]
This was the standard machine gun of the Italian Army during WW1, with a few surviving to see use during WW2 as well. It was… not the best heavy machine gun ever designed. The magazine could hold 50-100 rounds, but the way it did so was with a series of compartments, each of which held one five round rifle clip! As you can imagine, it made it clumsy to reload and meant the gun didn’t handle sustained-fire very well - quite a drawback for an HMG. On top of all this, it was liable to malfunction due to the awkward design.



One positive from a logistics point of view was the gun’s use of the same cartridge seen in the Carcano rifle - though it wasn’t able to use the 6-round en-bloc clips issued for the rifles, which could almost have made the awkward magazine compartment system worthwhile. Furthermore, that 6.5x52mm round could be a little underpowered for such a heavy weapon. The gun itself weighed 17 kg (37 lb) while the tripod weighed more, coming in at 21.5 kg (47 lb). The firing rate of 400-500 rounds-per-minute wasn’t fantastic either, though it did have a nice option to switch between single and fully automatic fire.

[h3]Artillery[/h3]
You’ve seen the mortar in the reveal trailer, showing one of the on-map artillery pieces that will be featured in Isonzo. There will also be off-map guns as well, offering fire support that can be called in by officers. We’ll share more details about this later - in short, the system for calling in support does differ somewhat from the mechanics in Verdun and Tannenberg. There will still be large field guns present on the battlefield as scenery (or perhaps as objectives?) and we’ve put as much effort into modelling them accurately as we have all the other weapons in the game. We took the photo below as part of our research field trip last year. Can you identify the gun?



[h2] Free Weekend Verdun & Tannenberg [/h2]
Earlier this week we released Verdun & Tannenberg on the current generation consoles, and to celebrate we’re having a free weekend for both games starting TODAY until Sunday the 20th.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

New and old recruits, the battlefield can always use more soldiers! Be sure to enlist during this period! The free weekend will be combined with WW1 Game Series sales on here on Steam! You can find the games separately with a 60% discount or as a bundle for 65% off!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/5227/WW1_Game_Series/


[h3]That’s all for now![/h3]
Thanks for joining us for another Isonzo Intel. If you’re excited for Isonzo, you can experience some WW1 action for free right now in our Verdun & Tannenberg free weekend! We’re celebrating the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 releases of the two games, and you can play them for free on consoles and here on Steam! There’s also a discount for the duration of the event - the perfect time for you (or a friend) to enlist!

Finally, don’t forget to check out our Twitter for the latest updates and more teasers. For instance, what do you know about this pistol?



You can find out more on Twitter!

See you next time!

Welcome to our second Isonzo Intel blog! Today we’re going to look at how you go about recreating locations from more than 100 years ago in a video game. The focus will still be on the Monte San Michele map that we revealed last time, which is part of the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo Offensive campaign. If you missed it, you should read all about the new Offensive game mode here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1556790/announcements/detail/3059609427948758061

With Isonzo’s move towards recreating specific battles and where they were fought, it’s vital to do good research in many different areas. Part of our process in representing the Carso landscape and doing justice to the heavy fighting in the area was a visit to the Museo Del Monte San Michele, which stands right on the summit of the mountain. It was an excellent museum with some fascinating virtual and augmented reality tech to immerse visitors into trench life. Their website has 3 minute video showcasing the museum which is well worth a watch.

A WIP screenshot of one of the trench lines.

And here’s a video we took on our field trip of one of the surviving trenches with those distinctive rocks.

The distinctive sharp rocks of the area, which you can see in the WIP screenshot above, were essential to get right. A particular challenge is that in the present day the entire region is covered by forests, which was not the case back then. The curator at the museum explained that before the war this landscape was completely bare rocks, because sheep ate all of the vegetation. Some imagination and looking at historical photos (which is difficult because you cannot see grass or foliage that easily in black and white photos) was needed to derive a good concept of how we should represent the landscape.

Rocks everywhere, with some foliage visible - hard to determine the amount and types without colour!

Also essential was getting the correct tech, which meant innovating and using more advanced techniques than in previous titles to bring these razor sharp rocks to life. We spent quite a long time tweaking this, and it might sound funny to put so much time into rocks, but they really have a huge impact on the sense of place. Getting the basics and fine details correct is vital to create a solid base for everything else. When you’re aiming for authenticity, attention to detail is never a waste of time!

The carso landscape, dominated by boulders - in the rear areas it contrasts with the grass.

Rocks alongside a path.

Maps are a very useful reference when laying out areas, but you have to be mindful that places do change a lot over time. If you can’t get maps from WW1, more modern maps might still be useful - but you have to be very careful. Take a look at this comparison between a 1916 map and one from 2018...



Another important part of the Monte San Michele map was the town of San Martino del Carso. It was heavily battered during previous battles and even the scene of combat following rare breakthroughs by Italian forces in earlier attacks. We recreated a Polish village for Tannenberg, but the towns of Isonzo are on a different level, being more densely built-up. These rustic towns are very distinctive and needed to be represented with accurate details. Especially the irregular way construction materials are typically used in rural Italy, with a mixture of brick, stone, concrete and plaster.

To this end we spent quite some time designing and tweaking the way we render walls and ruins to make these Italian towns feel real. You can compare one of our WIP screenshots with a period photograph below.

The ruins of San Martino del Carso.

The village is completely ruined, so you’ll have to fight your way through piles of rubble.

The town offers challenging combat scenarios which are closer to “urban” warfare, with the general destruction, crumbled walls, and half-destroyed roofs offering perfect cover and tactical fire ports.



Finally, inspiration comes from places other than history books as well - such as this by Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, written during breaks in the fighting. The town is the subject of the poem:

SAN MARTINO DEL CARSO
Of these houses
nothing
but fragments of memory

Of all who
would talk with me not
one remains

But in my heart
no one's cross is missing
My heart is
the most tormented country
of all


[h3]Until next time![/h3]
That’s all for this week! As for next time, we'll be having a look at some of the weaponry you'll be able to get your hands on in Isonzo. For instance, take a closer look at this… can you identify it already?

Benvenuti al fronte! Welcome to the first installment of the Isonzo development blog. Over the course of the following months we will release new content and updates that will give you more info about the game and all the exciting new gameplay features that are coming.

Last year we made a small road trip down to Italy for some on-site research. Three of us made the trip: series creative director Jos, together with producer Thomas and level designer Robin. While there, we made a few videos too...

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Developer Jos on location in Italy, discussing the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo.

As you’ll see in the blogs, Italy is a stunning place with some amazingly varied scenery. One of the reasons we chose to make an Italian Front game was the range of different battlefields, from mountain peaks to river valleys and the distinctive Italian towns. We really lean into this diversity with the new Offensive game mode that takes center stage in Isonzo. So without further ado, let's dig in to what Offensives are all about!


The Offensive game mode is a multi-map experience where success or failure in one battle will have an effect on future battles! In each map, one team is tasked with assaulting defensive positions and completing a number of objectives. The other team, as you would expect, will try to stop them. The battle progresses through multiple defensive lines: once the attackers complete all their current objectives, the defenders must fall back to the next line, which will have its own set of objectives.

Part of the Monte San Michele battlefield.

For instance, the attackers might need to capture and hold three points to complete the first defensive line of a map, and then the second line might require them to sabotage a gun position and capture two points to progress to the next defensive line. The attackers win by defeating every defensive line - the defenders win by holding out long enough. We'll go into more detail about the kind of objectives you can expect and exactly how it all works in a future post!

[h2]The Sixth Battle of the Isonzo[/h2]
Let’s illustrate with an example! The Sixth Battle of the Isonzo was was the first Battle of the Isonzo where the Italians actually gained some ground. There were breakthroughs in places and desperate stands by Austro-Hungarian defenders all along the southern Isonzo.

In-game, the Italian attackers are aiming to capture the city of Gorizia - and that assault is a single map and battle. However, to get there they first need to break through Austro-Hungarian positions at Monte Sabotino or Monte San Michele. Both of these are also individual battles. There are three ways the Offensive can go:

1. If the defenders can hold both Monte Sabotino and Monte San Michele, the Offensive fails and the Gorizia map isn’t even played.
   
2. If the attackers win one of the first two battles this means a breakthrough has been achieved, and Gorizia will be played. The winner of the Offensive comes down to who is victorious there.
   
3. Finally, if the attackers win both Monte Sabotino and Monte San Michele they have achieved a major breakthrough and will go to Gorizia with bonus reserves for the climactic battle!

A trench line on the heavily contested Monte San Michele.

As you can imagine, this approach has called for a lot of in-depth research to find historical battle maps, orders of battle, and accounts of how the battles progressed! It’s been a lot of work, but amazing to see how it all comes together to recreate key moments of the war on the Italian Front.

[h2]Specific Battles[/h2]
So to sum up, unlike our previous games which aimed to capture the overall feel of different areas of the frontline, in Isonzo every map corresponds to a particular battle, on a particular date. These maps are then linked together to form an Offensive.

Let's see what an individual Offensive mode map looks like with a specific example: the Carso map, centered around the conquest of the Monte San Michele. As part of the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo Offensive, success here gives the attackers a route to Gorizia, and extra reserves for that final battle if they also capture Monte Sabotino when they play that map.

(Very!) WIP UI of the overview of the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo Offensive.


The Monte San Michele was one of the most bloody locations on the entire Italian Front. From the very first battle the Italians needed to get a foothold on the Carso plateau. The Monte San Michele is not very tall (just 275m) compared to some of the Dolomite peaks, but it has a very commanding location overlooking the Gorizia valley. In the game you can actually see the other locations of the other two maps (Sabotino and Gorizia) in the distance from the top of Monte San Michele!

There are many significant features you’ll be fighting over in the course of the Monte San Michele battle. Establishing trenches in the rock of the Carso is no easy task, but it was done.

Part of a line of trenches that the Italian attackers will need to capture.

The Schönburg Tunnel entrance saw furious fighting. The tunnel was built by the Seventh Feldjager Battalion, started in 1915 and completed in 1916. It was named after General Alois von Schönburg Hartenstein - he was a major player in the Third Battle of the Isonzo. The tunnel cut through the entire mountain, providing a route for Austro-Hungarian reserves to reach the frontline, as well as serving as a shelter from artillery.

Our recreation of the Schönburg Tunnel entrance.

The town of San Martino del Carso is a key objective. The Italians actually did get this far in earlier battles, but were then forced back by Austro-Hungarian counterattacks. Ruined houses, debris and defences mark the effects of the earlier combat.

The town of San Martino del Carso.

Another tactically important feature of the terrain of the Carso are the ‘doline’ (sinkholes). These dips in the landscape are ideal for camps or artillery positions.

A doline camp.

That’s it for this week! We’ll be sharing more videos with accompanying blog posts, as well as some separate blogs to dive into features we don’t have space to do justice to in the videos.

Until next time!

Our new game Isonzo is set on the Italian Front of WW1, covering key battles ranging from high-altitude combat in the Alps through to the ferocious fighting for the Isonzo river, after which the game is named. There were 12 (!) Battles of the Isonzo, many resulting in heavy casualties and little ground being gained. Isonzo’s new Offensive game mode puts players at the center of those key historical offensives on the Italian front: one team must break through a series of defensive positions while the defenders try to hold their ground. Objectives range from mountaintop fortifications and river crossings to ruined towns and hastily dug foxholes – you can even expect a few trench lines!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]A new front[/h2]
Trenches, along with the mud and blood of the Western Front are what people think of first when the First World War comes up, but the Italian Front saw an equally brutal conflict begin in May 1915. This war between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy involved millions of men, and would see battles fought at heights of up to 12,000 feet (3,600 meters) as the two sides struggled for control of the Alps. The challenges of conducting a modern war in such conditions cannot be overstated!

Our last game Tannenberg covered the Eastern Front, so the question was where to take the WW1 Game Series next? After much discussion (and several research road trips) we decided that the Alpine warfare of the Italian Front offered great opportunities to elevate the series to unexpected heights! You can see things are already shaping up nicely in these WIP screenshots...



[h2]Historical Alpine warfare[/h2]
We’re going all out to make sure we reproduce the atmosphere of the Alpine Front in Isonzo, with the new game mode, a fresh look and feel, carefully recreated Italian weapons and uniforms, and much more! Our team has been working in secrecy on Isonzo for almost two years now, and much of that time has been spent designing new features to immerse players even more deeply in the experience of WW1 combat. To mention just a few examples (more will be revealed closer to release!) this means introducing equipment like the wire cutters seen in the trailer, making for a more dynamic battlefield where the enemy can cut new paths through your barbed wire. There’s a new loadout system giving players more tactical flexibility to react to changing battlefield conditions! As well as new engineering gear, the new front also means more weapons…

Mortars are just one of these new weapons that you’ll get your hands on in Isonzo. These player controlled indirect fire weapons fill a vital spot between heavy artillery barrages and hand grenades. Such indirect fire support is especially valuable in the landscapes of Isonzo, where you’ll find yourself fighting your way up steep slopes, through blasted towns, into fortified mountain bunkers, and more. And don’t think that these highly vertical battlegrounds won’t pose challenges for the defenders as well! While being on top might give you a good view, you’ll need to watch out that you aren’t silhouetted against bright blue skies as you lean over a ledge. The rugged landscape also gives ample opportunities for sneak attacks by cunning attackers moving through crevasses or narrow hillside paths.



[h2]A new entry in the WW1 Game Series[/h2]
Isonzo is the third game in the WW1 Game Series, following our Western Front game Verdun and Eastern Front game Tannenberg. Verdun is centered around trench warfare with the Frontlines game mode that sees players alternate between attack and defense as they try to capture trench lines, then defend those lines against counterattack. It illustrates the nature of fighting on the Western Front, where every meter was earned in blood and set-piece offensives were the order of the day. For last year's release - Tannenberg- we created the new Maneuver game mode to reflect the different realities of the Eastern Front – players fight to control sectors, and both teams can encircle and cut off enemy positions at any time. The fighting along the Russian border involved far greater distances than in France, and there was much more maneuver warfare (hence the name of the game mode). Verdun and Tannenberg are the perfect way to pass the time until the release of Isonzo!



[h2]Prepare to scale the mountain later this year…[/h2]
You can already wishlist Isonzo, and follow us for all the latest development news! The battle for the Italian Front starts later this year, and you don’t want to be unprepared for the extreme conditions of mountain warfare. We’ll reveal the precise release date closer to the time – and until then you can bet that we’ll be releasing more details about Isonzo! We can’t wait to share more about the gameplay, the battlefields you’ll be fighting over, new mechanics and much more.

Until then, enjoy the stunning views!