Matrix Games

Hi everyone!

If you’ve been following the news on ICBM: Escalation, you’ve probably heard that there’s a second DLC in the works! The new DLC, aptly named ‘The United States of Annihilation’ focuses on the United States. Now, anyone who’s familiar with the original single-player campaign is probably feeling a bit of deja vu. After all, the first 6 words in the campaign synopsis are literally ‘Take control of the United States’ so why is there a second American campaign? Well, the short answer is, because we wanted to make a campaign that plays differently than the others, and this one is gonna feel a LOT different.

Here’s a screenshot so you don’t have to check. Six words.

The ‘United States of Annihilation’ DLC focuses on the core tenets of what makes the ICBM series what it is: Nuclear weapons, a complete lack of respect for the consequences of using them, and an abhorrent amount of destruction. You see, in MacArthur’s Revenge and Endless October, the player had to strike a balance between completing demanding military objectives and avoiding diplomatic redlines or spiraling out of control into a total nuclear war. This DLC is different. While the last campaigns had you playing as the hard-pressed general making difficult decisions, avoiding collateral damage and keeping the world from crossing over the brink, this campaign is not like that.

So what’s the difference? Without explicitly putting out any spoilers (but knowing you can probably fill in the blanks with your imagination), in the ‘United States of Annihilation’ campaign, there’s no nuclear counter-balance to the US. It’s not always the solution, and like before, sometimes it will even cause your mission to fail, but if you fire a dozen ICBMs at your enemy, you don’t have to worry about any coming back. The world is your oyster, and you can fry it at 50 million degrees. So what’s the catch? If you’re allowed to nuke absolutely everything with no consequences, then the mission will be easy, right? Well, that’s precisely the thing. The missions are demanding enough that you really have no choice. 

In the previous 2 campaigns, your first mission was to fight over the Korean peninsula and maybe extend your offensive into China or a little piece of the Pacific if you were feeling bold and wanted top marks. Now, not to downplay the significance of the Korean War, because after all, it was a real event that people made the ultimate sacrifice for, but it was a single-theater conflict in a relatively small region. From a gameplay perspective, it’s fairly manageable and linear.

Sure, there’s a lot of enemies, but you’ve got allies and there’s only one front line. Simple.

Meanwhile, in this campaign, there’s no Korean War. The start year is 1949. In this alternate timeline, the US has funneled even more money, time and resources into its nuclear program, giving it a formidable nuclear arsenal before the turn of the decade. And that’s important, because your first mission is to LITERALLY DISMANTLE THE ENTIRE SOVIET UNION.

Sorry, you want me to do -what?-

Yes, that’s right. Instead of making you fight through 10 missions to turn Moscow into a parking lot, we’re going to get that out of the way right at the starting gun. Of course, you’re not going to beat the world’s only other superpower to death with some tommy guns and M46s. The only way you’re going to conceivably wipe them out in time with acceptable losses is by cracking heads and splitting atoms. You have exclusive rights to the world’s nuclear weapons and the only way you can hope to win is by putting them to good use. There’s no diplomatic redlines. There’s no limitations. There’s just you, a few allies, an utterly overwhelming enemy presence, and enough nuclear firepower to change the world. 

Without giving too much of the plot away, the rest of the campaign revolves around the hypothetical American nuclear monopoly. Namely, the clandestine black operations needed to maintain it, the blatant abuse of it to achieve otherwise insurmountable military objectives, and the inevitable consequences that come with doing both of the above. In other words, expect a mix of covert action and raw, unbridled carnage.

So, now that we’ve talked about what to expect in the new campaign, it’s good to briefly touch on some other things quickly as well. This DLC also fills in the gaps in the American cosmetic lineup, so you can finally have American cruisers and interceptors, among other things.

That’s right, the wholesale eradication of millions of innocents, AND there’s also the YF-23!

And, a few other quick notes, just like before, there’s plans for future free updates to the game as well! Just recently, by popular demand, we’ve added a new unit visibility filter, so if you don’t want to see all 4,000 of your radar sites at the same time, you can toggle them off. We’re listening to your feedback, so let us know what you think. There’s also a long list of units and techs that we can potentially add to the game as well. They might not all make the cut, but you can expect some new additions coming up! And, of course, because this dev diary is about a DLC, and because we listen to your feedback, and because I know everybody’s wondering the same thing… Yes, we’re doing a Chinese DLC after this one.

As you can see, PRC for DLC 3, date TBD.

And that wraps up this dev diary! Let us know what you think, and if you’re interested in the DLC, wishlist it on Steam. Your support is what keeps the lights on and the updates coming, so thanks for reading this far and seeing what we’ve got coming up!