Nuclear Dawn is a game that combines intense visceral and violent First Person Shooter action with fast-paced Real Time Strategy in the aftermath of a devastating apocalyptic world war.
Pillars of incandescent fire boiled to the heavens in every direction, burning bright and dark, like the clasped fingers of God trying to enclose the world. In 2024 the proud nations of man wiped each other out in the Nuclear Dawn. Millions were incinerated instantly and hundreds of millions died within the following days.With the human race on the brink of extinction and the whole world teetering on the edge of annihilation, we did the only thing that made sense. We kept fighting.
Old enemies of the East and West continue the war in a brutal series of skirmishes throughout the dead cities of a bygone era. The Consortium of Free States unites the survivors of the Western powers beneath a military dictatorship and relies on its Asymmetrical Warfare Division to plunder the lost artifacts of mankind’s golden age. The People’s Empire wields its elite Red Sword to check the advances of the Consortium and strike deep into the dark heart of the wastelands. Resources, relics, and hidden treasures draw both factions into an endless cycle of battle and you are on the frontlines.
Storm a building as an assault trooper, cling to the shadows with active stealth, or unleash incredible firepower from a high-tech suit of exo-armour, or lead as a commander, marshalling resources and deploying weapons and equipment for your troops.
On The Field
As a Commander
4 comments by MajorC4 on Oct 2nd, 2009 digg this super bookmark
Hello again from the Lucky Developer of the Week! My name is Igor, and I lead design for Nuclear Dawn. Many try their hand at the noble art of game design, and I was blessed with the chance to find out how much hard work designing a game actually is.
Nuclear Dawn is an incredibly rewarding project, and over the past months and years, it definitely gave everyone involved in its design the chance to stretch their creative muscles. The end result was a complex, believable game world that will resonate powerfully with players as they prowl the savage landscapes that might have once been their very home cities.
This game is as much as labour of love as it is a commercial project, and we took particular care in ensuring that nothing suffers from cookie cutter syndrome, and that every aspect of gameplay is presented in a fresh way that will hopefully appeal to all the players who are tired of playing World War II shooters. The design of the two main factions is indicative of that passion turned philosophy: the Consortium and the Empire are not just a blue and red side to pick in your average shooter, but rather two completely opposing sides of humanity after the holocaust, and their history, structure and organization will reflect in the way that you interact with the game.

Early on in development, we made the decision to move far past the ‘red vs blue’ nature of so many shooters, which often feature two identical factions, with slightly different weapons. The Consortium and the Empire are the last remnants of humanity’s proud nations, and each survived the holocaust in a completely different way.
The Consortium called upon the human spirit, and its nobler qualities, to pull through the destruction of their society. They are fierce individualists, and take great pride in their freedom.
On the other hand, the Empire retreated into the embrace of their governments, and developed along a hive mentality where individuals are statistics and units to be employed, developed or sacrificed for the common good.
We took those two opposing philosophies straight from the Cold War, and heated them up to nuclear temperatures, in more than just appearance. In Nuclear Dawn, each faction thinks, acts and reacts differently, and each reaction, thought and action is based on their way of life, which is radically different on the other side.
The Consortium are free range guerrilla fighters with the ability to place forward bases just about anywhere in the level, once they have developed the appropriate technologies. They operate by artillery and air drop, and their weapons and player augmentations are more humane and liberal than their counterparts.
Across the map and a world away, the Empire develops sprawling city bases with a unified power grid. Imperial commanders can only build within range of their power network, and their weapons and abilities reflect their life choice, by being more effective and powerful within the cybernetic embrace of their home, and less so outside.

At the end of the day, any game about conflict is about red versus blue. What we attempted to design into Nuclear Dawn is the kind of red and blue that you’ve never seen before. These colours have a history, a past, and they are actually different hues, rather than varying shades of the same theme.
Playing either the Consortium or the Empire in Nuclear Dawn will yield completely different experiences, and will require that you think differently about the actions, attacks and defensive manoeuvres that you plan.
A lot of effort and time went into making sure that players have a chance to identify with their colour of choice, and develop the best strategies to leverage the advantages of each faction’s way of life and combat.
The future, as you might have read elsewhere on this website, is war, and we’re going to make sure that it’s the most interesting, intense and believable war you’ve ever fought on your PC. Feelings of guilt at blowing the top of the skull of a father of three not included.
Igor Raffaele, Lead Game Designer
(Concept art for today's media update was kindly provided my Stuat Kim, who always amazes us with his ability to titillate with nothing but pixels, and always without nudity)
For the latest news, including blogs, media and feature updates, keep your eye onwww.nucleardawnthegame.com!
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Great to see you guys are still going strong :)
not bad not bad dudes
FPS mode only? RTS mode only?
Does third person work? (Does it require sv_cheats and do you use all the old commands?)
As what Kindred said.. think of a HL1 mod called Natural Selection ( Normal, not combat ) or the HL2 mod called Empires. ( There is another HL2 mod with the same aspect but it's name escapes me at this moment. )
They have both a rts element and a fps element in the same game mode. ( NS for HL1 though has a game mode with the rts element cut out.. to be honest I played that since it was first released.. before combat mode was put in.. and I actually favor the combat mode.. )
The other HL2 mod you are thinking off is Iron Grip: The Oppression.
I played NS a few times and Savage. FPS/RTS is good, but a pure FPS or RTS mode would be good too (:
It's a crossover, there will be FPS, and RTS at the same time, however different players will have different view points; commander = rts, units = fps, but there'll be a bit of crossover in each portion as well.
So it's essentially like Battlefield 2142?
So there isn't a pure FPS or RTS mode?
It is a FPS/RTS game. They aren't two separate game modes, they both coexist in one mode.