Fight in real world locations such as the streets of Carentan, the forests of Bastogne and many more in our spiritual successor to the great multiplayer shooters of the past. Precise aim with your Kar98, covering fire with your M1 Garand and quick thinking with your Thompson are key to your success, all packaged into a competitive multiplayer environment. In short, Battalion 1944 is an infantry based first person shooter with an emphasis on raw skill. No grinding, no 'exosuits', just you and your skill as a player.

Join a Battalion and compete season to season with BattleRank, our global competition system. Contribute to your Battalion's season objective to earn cosmetic rewards for your character, weapons and accessories within our realistic art style. Flaunt your success through your player profile to become a renowned player within the community. BattleRank’s highly tuned stat tracking system enables Battalion 1944 to go beyond the standard mould of shooters gone by and enables players to compete globally for rewards, glory and honor.

Bulkhead Interactive and Square Enix Collective announced that  Battalion 1944 is heading for Early Access on Thursday 1st February.

“It feels good to get Battalion 1944 into the hands of gamers after working on it so hard,” says Joe Brammer - Studio Lead at Bulkhead Interactive. “We’ve been testing the game behind closed doors with our Kickstarter backers. It’s now time for us to extend our testing to Early Access to help what I believe can one of the best competitive FPS games ever.”

Ahead of this, Bulkhead Interactive will also be running an exclusive beta of Battalion 1944. Kicking off from Friday January 19th through to Sunday January 21st. For a chance to take part, head on over to beta.battaliongame.com. Any Kickstarter or Humble Bundle backers will automatically gain access to the beta, with streaming and content creation using the beta allowed.

“We’re going to be using the beta to run domination on the Manorhouse V1 map, as well as showing off our new competitive mode ‘Wartide’ on the map Liberation,” continues Brammer. “It’s one last chance for us to test out our wares with FPS players before we make the leap to Early Access.”

What players won’t fail to notice during the beta is the combination of tightly crafted multiplayer maps and perfectly honed weapons designed for well-balanced encounters with an aesthetic that taps into an authentic WW2 feel.

“Getting to grips with the intense nature of the Second World War is something that’s been key to our process,” offers Howard Philpott - Creative Producer at Bulkhead Interactive. “That’s something I also think comes across in this new reveal trailer - the action in a Battalion 1944 encounter is as feverish as it is credible. We’ve looked to bed the play down in maps that are both competitive and authentic, for which our trips to Normandy proved immensely useful”.

The Early Access version of Battalion 1944 will come with six modes, to be announced later down the line.

Utilizing the most advanced industry technology, and powered by the Unreal Engine 4, Battalion 1944 resurges World War 2 back into the modern gaming spotlight in our spiritual successor to the great multiplayer shooters of the past such as Call of Duty 2 and Day of Defeat. On BattleRank, it’s down to skilled soldiers like you to fight for your battalion.

Key Features

• Raw skill based gameplay. We believe your skill should be determined by your play, not through unfair overpowered unlocks and abilities. Battalion learns from the skill based gameplay of classic competitive shooters and merges it with the stunning visuals that our team can produce, utilizing next-gen techniques such as motion capture, physically based rendering and photogrammetry to make Battalion a truely next gen competitive shooter.
• Intense and balanced infantry combat. Our designers have scoured hundreds of multiplayer shooters to design the best fitting formula for a well balanced WW2 first person shooter. The excitement in Battalion lies in the down the barrel experience.
• BattleRank competitions. Go lone wolf or team up alongside friends. Contribute to your Battalion's season objective, receiving rewards for team and individual efforts. Compete in regular challenges ranging from seasonal to quick fire hourly objectives to earn rewards and extra XP. Challenges are broadcast via the main menu's challenge alert panel as well as through our social media outlets.
• Beautiful and realistic environments. Our incredibly talented art team are designing a visually stunning recreation of World War 2 and have even travelled to Normandy for reference and research to make the maps as authentic as possible. The world needs to look as real as we can push it. It's important to us for Battalion to have longevity, to do this everything in Battalion will be designed and rendered using the latest advances in industry technology. Battalion will be on the forefront of video game graphics.
• Tight, focused, competitive maps. Battalion's maps will be designed around our team based infantry combat. The map locations are inspired by real world battlegrounds of the allied campaign and blended with competitive layouts of classic shooters that focus on balance and competition.

Battalion 1944 will retail for £11.99/€14.99/$14.99.