Matrix Games

Hi everyone!

We just announced the first DLC for ICBM: Escalation! Now, you’re probably wondering what’s inside, and what it means for the future of ICBM. So, in this dev diary, we’ll talk a little bit about what we have in store for the future of the game and what you can expect in the upcoming DLC.

Now, before we get too ahead of ourselves, we want to make something clear from the outset: There’s going to be free updates for ICBM: Escalation in the future. If you don’t own any of the DLCs we have planned, you’ll still be able to play multiplayer and singleplayer games as fully as anyone else can and we won’t lock any new features behind the DLCs. Now obviously there will be some content you won’t have access to without the DLCs just by nature of how they work, but any new technologies, gameplay features or other improvements that we make will be available to everyone. We don’t want to split the community, so the DLCs are just a fun way to add extra content and also keep the idle parts of the team busy while we also make AI improvements and tune up the rest of the game. So, what’s in the DLC then?

Our first DLC is focused around the Soviet Union and its primary successor, the Russian Federation, and takes the name “Endless October” from the October Revolution that led to the rise of communism and the birth of the USSR. The name itself alludes to the campaign that comes as the main part of the DLC: An alternate history timeline where the player controls a Soviet Union which is stronger and avoids collapsing in the 1990s.

Some people say the Cold War never really ended. Well, there’s no doubts this time…

We’ll talk about the campaign more in a second, but this DLC also includes new Soviet and Russian-styled player portraits, and also marks the introduction of cosmetic loadouts, which allow you to choose how your units are represented on the battlefield. Now with the DLC, you’ll be able to replace your Leopard 1s with T-62s, change out your F-22s for Su-57s, and swap out basically any other unit that happens to have a suitable Soviet or Russian counterpart. Because the global arms trade is a finicky thing, you can also mix and match between nations. If you want to pretend to be India and use Apache helicopters to back up your T-72s, you can do that. You can tailor your armies to match a historical precedent, or just build up an army based on whatever you think is the coolest. It’s up to you!

Just like old times.

Now, let’s get into the meat of the DLC: The brand new single-player campaign that it takes its name from. Much like the original campaign, the Endless October campaign features 11 missions, spanning from the start of the Cold War all the way to the hypothetical near future. The difference this time? Now you’re on the opposite side of the coin. As the commander for the Soviet Union’s vast forces and extensive military industrial complex, it’s up to you to resist the opposition from your rivals, support communist forces around the world and preserve the glory of the Soviet state. But don’t expect a rerun of the first campaign! While NATO’s doctrine relies on technological advantages to give it an edge, Soviet doctrine is built around brute force and numbers, which is something you’ll have to consider as you develop your forces. And of course, the US and USSR have their own histories and didn’t fight all the same battles. The new campaign will see you take the fight to the anti-communist forces in Angola, the Chinese pushing against your borders, and even threats from within the Soviet Union itself, just to name a few. Like the original campaign, this is a timeline that’s more intense, more brutal and more lethal than reality.

In true ICBM fashion, the Angolan civil war is about to get a lot worse.

As for ICBM: Escalation as a whole, we have plans for more updates to the base game as mentioned before. Currently, the AI is getting reworked, but that’s a story for next time. On that note, that’s the end of this dev diary, and we’ll see you again soon!