Tannenberg takes the Verdun experience to the Eastern Front, a theater often neglected in portrayals of the First World War. Named after the heavy fighting at the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914, the standalone expansion will see players immersed in battles reflecting warfare on the Eastern Front.  

The Entente will face off against the Central Powers across diverse landscapes ranging from exposed snowy plains and thick forests to burned villages and mountain pastures. Fresh tactics will be required to win the day in the authentic landscapes of these new locations, which are a long way from the muddy Western Front trenches. Different squads will bring with them a range of new weapons, all of which have been carefully crafted with the attention to detail Verdun players have come to expect. 

Players have the chance to brave the snow as they sign up with the Russian army or their opponents in this standalone expansion to Western Front WW1 shooter Verdun, as the action moves to the less well known Eastern Front. Tannenberg features four distinctive squads including the iconic Russian Cossacks and often underrepresented Austro-Hungarian K.u.K. troops, more than 20 new weapons, and 4 sprawling maps. Fighting will ebb-and-flow according to where each team chooses to concentrate their strength. Beware of encirclement in the new Maneuver game mode! 

Whether your weapon of choice is a lethal sabre, powerful machine gun or simply a good old rifle you should keep your wits about you and stick close to your squad. By playing together, players build up cooperative XP which will unlock new squad abilities as a reward for team play. The scenery of Eastern Germany and Russia ranges from wide open fields and foothills to dark forests and lakes, and snow is always a possibility. Each map comes in different versions with a range of weather conditions, so when a match is starting you can never be sure what to expect. 

The new Maneuver game mode gives players far more freedom in their movement and rewards teams who can adapt to changes in the tactical situation, as well as offering more variation with battles thanks to a variety of different preset weather conditions and objectives. Players will be battling in teams of 32 vs 32 to control a spread of objective zones across larger and more open maps. The choice of where to attack and defend allows players to control the flow of the battle as the capture and loss of points will open up or cut off different avenues of advance. This represents the nature of fighting seen on the Eastern Front. Tannenberg also includes full AI bot support for the new game mode, to ensure an epic battle every time. 

Tannenberg is now in open beta, accessible via Early Access on Steam for $17.99 with a 20% loyalty discount for Verdun players running until December 1.  

There is also a Supporter Edition available for $22.99 which will include the game, a special medal, the soundtrack, Tannenberg artwork, a scoreboard star icon and bonus career points to get more variety right from the start. 

Developer Jos Hoebe of Blackmill Games says: “Once we had decided on going to the Eastern Front with our new game, the next step was identifying the characteristic elements of the war in the east, and how that would change the gameplay compared to Verdun. For instance, the huge armies and great distances involved both called for larger, more open maps and doubling the player count to 64!”

The Tannenberg open beta is close to complete, with all content present. The open beta period on Early Access will be focused on making balance, sound and performance improvements as well as implementing a new user interface to refine the game experience before the full release in Q1 2018. There will also be a system added to allow easy switching between the Western and Eastern fronts ingame. Work on Verdun will continue as well, as it will benefit from the new visual and audio improvements in Tannenberg – an update with this new content is expected to go live in Q1 2018. 

To celebrate the release, the developers have planned  a series of events to test the knowledge of Verdun and WW1 history fans, with Tannenberg keys up for grabs! Expect to be quizzed on differences between the Eastern and Western Fronts, realism in Tannenberg and Verdun, and perhaps even more challenging trivia. 

1914-1918 series

Starting out on the Western Front with the release of the first authentic WW1 FPS Verdun back in April 2015, and expanding to the Eastern Front with the upcoming Tannenberg, the 1914-1918 series throws players into intense warfare inspired by the chaos and fury of iconic battles from the First World War. With over a million copies of Verdun sold, this novel and underserved setting has proven popular with the gaming community! 

Players choose from a variety of historically accurate squads and weapons, with more available to unlock through playing the game, before diving into the mud and blood splattered battlefields of dynamic multiplayer trench warfare. 

Every game is built on a base of thorough research and receives extensive post-release support bringing new content and challenges for our players. The games in the series are linked, but each one is standalone and provides a different experience, reflecting the nature of the fighting in the many-sided theaters of the war.