Some things have changed, some things have not. I'll give a quick recap of what happened last year and why, then I'll move into what this means for Combat Mission fans going forward.
2024 was interesting
Obviously, the big news for last year was the sale of Battlefront to Slitherine. Believe it or not, Charles and I viewed ourselves as the stewards of Combat Mission more than its owners. After spending years making CM3 in the background of CM2 we did some deep soul searching about where things were compared to where we wanted them to be. Our conclusion was, as it is now, that Slitiherine can do so much more for CM than we could on our own. That is the reason we chose to sell Battlefront and 6 months later we can say for sure we made the right decision. No doubts about it.
With that, now it's onto talking about the year to come.
For many years now Battlefront has been hard at work on CM3, a completely ground up game engine based on the concepts of CM1 and CM2 combined with the powerful features Unity has to offer. By late 2023 we had a pretty sweet looking late Alpha (or early Beta, depending on how you define it) that had all kinds of awesome features we've long wanted to bring to Combat Mission. We were quite pleased with the shape it was taking, just not how long it was taking to do it and the inevitable compromises a small developer like us would have to make to get the thing done.
The objective for CM3 is to produce a game that grizzled veteran CMers fall instantly in love with while at the same time appealing to the wider war/strategy market. That has been the goal since we first started designing CM3 and that is unchanged as Slitherine understands full well what CM is and what makes it special. Trust me when I say that the last 6 months has shown how right we were to put CM in their hands.
Unfortunately, regarding the features that CM3 has in it is not something we're ready to talk about until we're further along with it. Which means there are no specific bones to throw out there right now, other than reiterating that higher level features you love in CM2 are most likely in CM3 already and better implemented then in CM2. I've already hinted that nobody needs to worry about either WeGo or RealTime going away, so I'll hint at it again
Besides the million questions about this or that feature, the other easy to anticipate is "when is the release of the first CM3 game?" It's a fair question, without a specific answer for even us just yet! More time needs to be spent on some fundamentals before we have a good handle on when it will be done. What I can say is that Slitherine is a well balanced company with strategic vision. They will neither rush CM3 out the door, nor will they keep it in development longer than is needed. Very similar to Battlefront's concept of it's not done until it's done. It's the right approach!
Another easy to predict question is "what is the subject of the first CM3 game?" For this one there is a definite answer. In fact, it's been defined for probably 2 or more years already. As with my other answers, now isn't the right time to be talking about this. What I can do is assure both the Modern and the WW2 fans out there that CM3 is being developed with both in mind. Whichever comes first will be quickly followed by the other. Our team is big enough that we can finally do two things at once.
Lastly, some news about CM2 development. The last major content release for CM2 is the BAOR Module for CM Cold War. It's very far along and is progressing nicely! Updates on its status will come soon enough. We are also planning on releasing more high quality Battle Packs for existing CM2 Families by the same group of guys that produced the previous Battle Packs. Slithierine knows a good thing when they see it, and our dedicated content guys sure are a good thing!
Well, I think that's long enough! As always, I am standing by for a discussion about all of this. Thanks again for all the years of support and giving us a reason to keep doing what we love to do!
Steve
