Act of Aggression gameplay revealed in pre-alpha trailer

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Eugen Systems has released a pre-alpha gameplay trailer for Act of Aggression, the near-future RTS it announced last year. The studio says the game will hearken back to the "golden era" of the genre, with base building, resource management, mass unit production, and three competing factions with unique abilities and technology.

Two of the game's factions appear in the trailer: The US Army, a "brute force of veterans," tough and battle-hardened but saddled with current-gen technology, and the stealthy, secretive Cartel, which has access to the latest military prototypes but isn't as well suited for a stand-up fight. The third faction, the UNO-funded Chimera, is a more well-rounded force: "You can mold their units through upgrades into specific roles," Eugen said, "or leave them as a jack-of-all-trades."

Act of Aggression will feature large maps and supply lines, but will be a "much more intimate" experience than the Wargame titles—European Escalation, AirLand Battle, and Red Dragon—that have taken up Eugen's time over the past few years. A release date hasn't been announced, but it's expected to be out this spring, following a "VIP multiplayer beta" that will take place sometime in the next few months.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.