After many months of hard work, delays and endless "what's taking so long?" threads, we are very pleased to announce that Darkest Hour Beta 3.0 is now available via Steam!
Please note that if you already have Beta 2 it is very important that you delete or rename your DarkestHour folder before downloading Beta 3. Older versions are incompatible with the Steam client and will result in a corrupt download.
Built on the award-winning Steam favorite, Red Orchestra, Darkest Hour brings the classic RO multiplayer experience to the beaches of Normandy, Operation Market-Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and on into the Reich. Now you can play as American, British or Canadian troops, with a huge range of additional features including:
- More than 20 new infantry weapons, such as the ever-distinctive Garand, M1 Carbine, .30-cal, Bren, FG42, Thompson and the Enfield rifles
- American Bazooka, British PIAT and German Panzerschreck to go tank-hunting with
- New infantry features, including Airborne drops onto the battlefield, bullet suppression and supersonic cracks, plus a new radioman class for calling in artillery strikes
- Dozens of new uniforms for all nations
- Over a dozen new crewable vehicles including the King Tiger and JagdPanther for the Germans, countered with multiple types of Sherman in 75mm, 76mm and 17-pounder versions, plus the Cromwell, M10 Wolverine and Achilles
- New armor features, including engine damage and fires, crew hits and tracks visibly breaking when hit
- More transport – Kubelwagen, Jeep and Opel truck
- 11 new maps, including:
- Juno Beach – Canadians storming the beaches in classic D-Day action
- Carentan – the US 101st Airborne assaults the town shortly after D-Day
- Brecourt – 101st Airborne attempt to put a key German artillery battery out of commission behind the beaches
- Vieux – vast sweeping armored combat as the British attempt to break out during Operation Goodwood in Normandy
- Ginkel Heath – British paras drop into a hotly-contested LZ at the start of Operation Market-Garden
- Wacht-am-Rhein – sweeping tank combat during the Battle of the Bulge, including the fearsome King Tiger
- Stoumont – American infantry and armor try and hold back the SS PanzerGrenadiers in the streets of the Ardennes town
- Bois Jacques – tenacious American defense against the combined German tank and infantry forces
- Foy – the Germans’ turn to defend against attacking American airborne troopers
So whether it is the Normandy campaign, jumping onto the dropzones around Arnhem or the bitter fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, new and old players alike will get a chance to see why RO remains a classic. Now with the opportunity to re-play those battles RO-style, courtesy of Darkest Hour: Europe 1944-45!
Additional information for custom mappers can be found here:
Forums.darkesthourgame.com
Additional information for server admins can be found here:
Forums.darkesthourgame.com
Interesting. So I see this is a non-Source mod, yet it was release on Steam? How did that come about? Did they contact you or you contact them?
Red Orchestra was the first non-source game to have mods available for download on steam, the first mod was Mare Nostrum so this is nothing new
PS: This is the best mod for Red Orchestra (!!!)
While i can appreciate the work that went into this, i dont know who's idea of "fun" it was to implement 20 mile square (literally) tank maps where you have to drive for as many minutes to get to the next checkpoint.
Only to be instantly blown up by an enemy tank disguised in some bushes, and have to respawn and do it all over again.
The first time I tried this mod I happened to play on such a map, so the first impressions of the mod could have been better. I changed to a different server before I even managed to arrive where I wanted to drive. That's when the mod became a little more fun.
1. This mod is for Red Orchestra, which was originally a mod for UT 2004 which got released on Steam as a full game. Thats why this mod for RO is on steam, because its one of the mods for RO which is good enough for it.
2. You have to drive that far because its ultra realism, thats why in RO you can and will die from one shot from a pistol or any other weapon for that matter unless shot in some obscure place like your hand or foot.
Also, some people, however strange it may be, find that ammount of realism fun. Also if you spawned too close the enemy would be able to spawn camp you from miles away. I suppose its ment to discourage spawn camping and up the realism.
I am a fan of realism but is it kind of dumb that you can get one shot one kill with a pistol? i mean you should survive like 2 shots alease so that you can return fire right? or is that if in close range then nvm. But this looks great, i feel like getting RO now to play this.
Looks interesting. One day I'll update RO and download this and give it a go.
Mentioning the ultra realism is a good point because that's what reminded me of why I didn't get into RO. The close quarter maps were fun, but the large open ones weren't so much. I think with a proper team who would stay and work together would fix that though.
YAY!
RO requires a little more strategy and teamwork, somewhat tactical. It's more of a sim than an arcade-like shooter. If you have tank teams of at least 2. The gunner is on the turret with his binocs making sure that there are no tanks waiting for them. If you go solo in a tank, you bear the risk of driving the distance and getting blown to hell. So there is a tradeoff. If you want instant action, and you don't want to be bothered with team collaboration, then this game is not for you
YAY ! This mod rocks !
the engine reminds me so much of the battlefield(2) engine (from the video), nice work, depending on price, may buy RO
it's at "Big mac" price right now, so you might as well get it while you can ;)
Driving distance for map like Wacht am Rhein is hardly necessary. Ok, sure it adds to the realistic aspect that tank park is usually a couple miles away from the front line but it adds very little to the game. On map like that, there's usually lots of text chatting because everyone's just driving about.
Does RO (and associated mods) really simulate logistic in detail? Not really, so reinforcement should be fairly close so players can get into action. That is why most people prefer Arad over blackdayjuly (and wacht is at least 5 times worser than BDJ).
I mean, use some imagination FFS. We can easily assume the reserve are moved up to a forward position and players are spawned there as the crew.
And penetrating shot killing crew member. Now you have half of your crew on most combined arm map standing around in spawn or attempting to run for over five minutes just to get back to playing.
The "commander" is the loader, the gunner, and the commander all at the same time. Is that really realistic when 3 men turret was already the norm at the time? Why does the commander popping his head out of the hatch (or getting panzershreck-ed in the turret) and died mean both the loader and the gunner dies? That doesn't make much sense from both gameplay or realistic point of view
Just some ranting, the game is fine and I am pretty sure soon people will stop voting for wacht.
3.0 KICKS *** HARD (like I stated on teh server);
Although, give us back the old maps (Benouville, St.Lo, etc) - please don't be that gay and don't delete good realistic maps (dunno about St.Lo, it's just a fun close range intense battle map) just because Battlefield kids don't like'em.
RO is amazing, I love it the realism makes it such a great game, I'm really looking forward to downloading and installing this.