Battlezone (1998 video game)

Battlezone is a first-person shooter real-time strategy video game, developed and published by Activision. It was released for Microsoft Windows in 1998. Aside from the name and presence of tanks, this game bears little resemblance to the original arcade game of the same name. The game is a combination of a tank simulation game, a first-person shooter and a real-time strategy game.

Two expansion packs were released in 1998, Battlegrounds and The Red Odyssey. In 2000, a Nintendo 64 port was released under the name Battlezone: Rise of the Black Dogs. In 2016, a remastered version titled Battlezone 98 Redux was released developed by Big Boat Interactive and published by Rebellion Developments. A sequel, Battlezone II: Combat Commander, was released in 1999.

The primary resource in Battlezone is bio-metal scrap which is used to produce new units and construct new buildings. Building and directing units is done via interface either by selecting onscreen object with the mouse or by using number keys on the keyboard. Starting with a bio-metal recycler (the most basic construction unit), the player constructs vehicles to scavenge scraps of bio-metal, build base defenses, and construct new base vehicles capable of building more advanced structures and vehicles.

Players can acquire bio-metal scrap by either finding it or salvaging it from a destroyed enemy unit. When a ship is destroyed, the pilot ejects and thus becomes vulnerable to being killed, but can escape by boarding any friendly vehicle.

Battlezone has a multiplayer feature that consists of three modes: Strategy, DeathMatch and Sniper. Strategy involves two or more players who compete in either as a player vs player, or playing in teams against one another, skirmishing for scrap collection and eventual map domination. Strategy offers the same type of control as in the single-player game. The Strategy game ends when the opposing force lives are reduced to zero. In DeathMatch two or more players battle until the opposing vehicle is destroyed. Once destroyed, the pilot is ejected and floats back to the ground with the user's vehicle being respawned for continued play. The game ends for each player as the player quit the game and only for the player quitting the game. Sniper game play consists of two or more players participating against each other in a "Deathmatch" style face off with their rifles. When a sniper is killed, he (depending on map) will spawn at his original spawn point, or another spawn point on the map.

Online gaming used to be available at Activision's servers through Anet, a peer-to-peer networking system which features a chat lobby and a list of games in progress. A player can select a game to join and then connect to the host's computer.

Battlezone is set during the turn of the 1970s with an alternative history plot, in which the Space Race is used to cover up the deployment of the United States and Soviet militaries into space. Both sides have used scraps of extraterrestrial "bio-metal", which have fallen to Earth as meteors, to build vehicles with amazing properties such as hover capability. Both nations deploy into space and are fighting across the Solar System to control other deposits of the bio-metal. Gameplay is divided up into two campaigns; one following the American National Space Defense Force (NSDF), the other with the Soviet Cosmos Colonist Army (CCA, also referred to as the Communist Cosmonaut Army in early game manuals).

The American campaign starts on the Luna, but the NSDF is forced off after the destruction of their main base. They relocate to Mars, but find the Soviets already there. Both sides locate alien artifacts, and the Americans also find a factory; the long-dead alien race that created the bio-metal is identified as the Cthonians, who inhabited the planet Icarus (now the asteroid belt) and visited Earth on several occasions, influencing Greek mythology. The Americans learn of an ultimate weapon called the "Fury" and head to Venus to learn more about it. Another Cthonian relic is recovered, pointing to Jupiter's moon Io. The NSDF finds a third relic, but this is stolen by a scientist defecting to the Soviets. The player must steal a Soviet fighter craft and tap into the communications network, which reveals the CCA relocation to their main base on Saturn's moon Titan. The Americans clear nearby Europa of CCA units to prevent early warning to those on Titan, but the main assault is annihilated, as the Soviets have begun to manufacture Fury vehicles. The Furies then turn on the Soviets; they are self-aware and programmed to destroy all life. Icarus was destroyed by the Cthonians to prevent the Furies from reaching Earth. The NSDF and CCA ally against the new threat, and after destroying the production factory on Titan, travel to the fictional moon of Achilles, orbiting Uranus. The Americans destroy the main Fury base, but this causes the moon's core to destabilise, and the player must destroy the Furies' evacuation vessel before it escapes, then escape themselves.