''Nuclear Dawn'' is a hybrid

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, turn ...

video game. It was originally announced in February 2006 as an amateur

mod Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...

for the

Source engine Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the release of '' Counter-Strike: Source'' and '' Half-Life 2''. Updates to Source were released in incremental versions, with the engine being su ...

, but in April 2009 was revealed to have become Source-based project for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

. It was released on 26 September 2011.

Gameplay

One randomly selected player on each team is a commander, who directs the team from an

overhead view A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object or location from a very steep viewing angle, creating a perspective as if the observer were a bird in flight looking downwards. Bird's-eye views can be an aerial photograph, but also a draw ...

. This player sets up infrastructure and

spawn point In video games, spawning is the live creation of a character, item or NPC. Respawning is the recreation of an entity after its death or destruction, perhaps after losing one of its lives. Despawning is the deletion of an entity from the game w ...

s. The remainder are soldiers who play it as a

. These players can choose from four classes: stealth, a quick class who can turn invisible; exo, a slow heavy weapons specialist designed to destroy enemy buildings; assault, a

player versus player Player versus player (PvP) is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. This is often compared to player versus environment (PvE), in which the game itself controls its players' opponents. The terms are mos ...

class who can see invisible units; and a support class who can heal teammates or repair buildings constructed by the commander. New abilities become available to each class as the commander researches technologies and erects buildings. Each side comprises 16 players. A team wins when they destroy the other side's base. There are six post-apocalyptic maps.

Development

Drivable vehicles were originally planned, however this was cut due to issues.

Reception

''Nuclear Dawn'' received mixed reviews on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. ''

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games ma ...

'' found the perks "muddled and unclear" and disliked how there is no way to practice the commander role outside a live game. However, they called it "surprisingly deep and well-designed" and praised the map design,

technology tree In strategy games, a technology, tech, or research tree is a hierarchical visual representation of the possible sequences of upgrades a player can take (most often through the act of research). Because these trees are technically directed and acy ...

, and first-person elements. ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'' praised the design, game balance, and maps, but they criticized the lack of a tutorial or solo play. They said players' experiences will likely vary according to how experienced their teammates are, ranging from "a white-knuckle tactical struggle" to "a sloppy brawl". Although they felt there were still balancing issues that needed to be fixed, ''

Rock Paper Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' (also rendered ''Rock, Paper, Shotgun''; short ''RPS'') is a UK-based website for reporting on video games, primarily for PC. Originally launched on 13 July 2007 as an independent site, ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' was acquir ...

'' recommended it to fans of ''

Savage Savage may refer to: Places Antarctica * Savage Glacier, Ellsworth Land * Savage Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land * Savage Ridge, Victoria Land United States * Savage, Maryland, an unincorporated community * Savage, Minnesota, a city * Savage, Mi ...

'' and ''

Natural Selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...

''.

References

External links

{{Commons category
Official homepage
First-person shooters Real-time strategy video games First-person strategy video games Source (game engine) games 2011 video games Linux games Windows games MacOS games Video games with Steam Workshop support Video games developed in the Netherlands Iceberg Interactive games InterWave Studios games