The big announcement from MicroProse is here and its a bit of a surprise! MicroProse is not back just as a developer of games but also a publisher with the announcement that they are joining forces with Triassic Games, Drydock Dreams Games, and Hexdraw as the future publisher for all three of these developers titles. Let’s have a look at each!

Task Force Admiral

If you read my earlier article or follow Stormbirds on Twitter, you probably know Task Force Admiral and the development efforts of the folks over at Drydock Dreams Games. The concept behind Task Force Admiral is centred around carrier operations during World War II in the Pacific.

You assume command of an American fleet complete with a huge range of ships and aircraft over the course of dozens of scenarios where each decision you make can affect the overall outcome. There’s a solid sprinkling of air combat in here as it is the primary means of each fleet engaging each other. Although you don’t take direct control, what I’ve seen of the this so far makes me pretty excited to try commanding the skies over the Pacific.

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Sea Power

Under developed by Triassic Games, Sea Power is somewhat similar to the above Admiral Taskforce but with a more modern direction that is focused on Cold War era naval combat. Featuring a wide variety of ships and aircraft including the F-14 Tomcat, A-7 Corsair II, Tu-22 Backfire, and Tu-95 Bear, this also looks like a very interesting strategy game with that real time component that makes it very engaging.

I had intended to do a little coverage on this title when I had a chance to have a look at it more closely.

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Second Front

Marketed as a turn-based strategy game, Second Front is pretty far from the usual simulation focus of Stormbirds.blog and it’s in a genre that doesn’t excite me the way flight and simulations do in general. That said, some of you may be looking for something like this and I’d encourage you to check it out if you do.

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Expecting something else? This is just a start!

Some are expressing a little disappointment or at least surprise at the announcements today and I think it’s because we all thought MicroProse was going to announce some new titles from their internal development today. I certainly focused my speculation yesterday that we were going to find out about what they had been building towards with many of their teasers.

Future title announcements are still coming according to the announcement today so I wouldn’t be too disappointed yet. This is just the start.

I also think this is still a major announcement. Why is that? Because this signals MicroProse clearly has an ambitious set of plans not only to develop internally but also to pull together some indie developers doing some impressive work and bring them into the fold too. That is potentially a big deal.

There is definitely a hint of the classic MicroProse at work here. The companies long history of both developing internally and bringing in other developers to build out a diverse array of game titles was very successful in their heyday and it is possible that they would like to capture that reputation again. Their simulation focus is very exciting to me and I can’t wait to see how this all plays out!