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 is excited to announce the opening of a brand-new studio in Munich, Germany.

Nestled in the heart of Bavaria, the new studio will be branded ‘Bulkhead Darkhorse’ and will look to take advantage of the multitude of agile and multi-disciplined development talent across central Europe.

“From day one, Bulkhead has always had a strong focus on the quality of life the team are able to enjoy both in and outside of work hours,” comments Bulkhead Interactive CEO, Joe Brammer. “That’s why Munich is such a perfect choice for the next stage in the company’s journey. When we decided to expand, we visited prime sites across the globe in the likes of Canada, the Netherlands, and – of course – Germany. Munich really stood out, and it consistently ranks highly amongst European cities when it comes to quality of life.”

Bulkhead Darkhorse’s main focus will be to continue to work on Battalion 1944, with a mountain of new content and updates ahead of its full release high on the agenda. Bulkhead Interactive can also announce Darkhorse will begin work on a new first-person shooter in 2019.

“For us, Darkhorse is an extension of Bulkhead Interactive’s modern game development ethos,” continues Brammer. “We’re excited to be growing our own team as well as games development in Bavaria. As such, we’ve collaborated heavily with ‘Games Bavaria’ who have made our transition as smooth as possible.”

Adding to the news, Bulkhead Interactive can also announce the rebranding of its Derby studio as ‘Bulkhead Phoenix’.            

It might have a new name, but Bulkhead Phoenix remains the original studio formed by five university students back in 2014. The studio’s legacy includes Bulkhead Interactive’s very first game, Pneuma: Breath of Life on Xbox One –  one of the first titles to be launched as part of the ID@Xbox program by Microsoft.

Two years later, Bulkhead Phoenix went on to create the well-reviewed first-person puzzler The Turing Test, as well as successfully Kickstarting the company’s biggest project to date: the back-to-basics, classic WW2 shooter Battalion 1944. Indeed, it’s Battalion 1944’s commercial success when it hit Early Access back in February that ultimately triggered Bulkhead Interactive’s decision to expand its operations beyond its Derby base.

Currently, Bulkhead Phoenix sits at 30 staff and counting, serving as a stable studio with an exciting future those remaining in Derby are excited to see pan out.

“We’ve had five years of solid learning since we entered the games industry,” offers Kieron White, Studio Lead at Bulkhead Phoenix. “I think the most valuable lesson we’ve learned is how important our company culture is. To us that means not only retaining our ‘never say die’ attitude, but also keeping our eye on the important things, like people’s family, personal lives, and doing things together as a group of friends.”

Bulkhead Interactive’s main title, Battalion 1944, is about to play host to a major update, which represents a total rework of the game based on player feedback from Early Access. The game will also host a $50,000 major tournament in September in Amsterdam, designed to inspire the competitive Battalion 1944 community as the development team turns its sights onto the game’s wider audience.

Both Bulkhead Phoenix and Bulkhead Darkhorse are currently hiring talented Unreal Engine developers.

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 $14.99/€14.99/£11.39.