Enemy Front is 'more tactical and choice-oriented' than your standard shooter

CI Games' World War II first-person shooter Enemy Front has a gameplay style that producer Stephen Skelton describes as "more tactical and choice-oriented than your standard shooter."

Speaking to Polygon during a recent demo of the game, he said Enemy Front (which will launch this summer on PS3, Windows PC and Xbox 360) isn't just about hopping in and running and gunning, although players can certainly do that if they want to. Every level in the game has an overall objective, but how a player chooses to complete those objectives is completely up to them.

"[The game] makes the player put a little bit more thought into what they're going to do before they do it..."

Enemy Front creative director Phil O'Connor previously told Polygon that the game supports different types of gameplay, from the stealth approach to all-out running and gunning, to the use of dirty tricks. The most recent demo of the game featured all these play-styles, but also showed how players can use the environments to their tactical advantage.

Players will occasionally come by piles of logs or crates hanging from cranes that they can use to help them complete missions. Firing a bullet at some rope that is holding together heavy logs will cause the logs to tumble down the road and, if timed correctly, crush enemies that are in the way. Firing a bullet at a crane that is holding up a heavy crate will produce a similar effect and, if timed correctly, will take out any enemies directly below it.

None of these environmental features need to be used, but they're given to players as one of many options.

Skelton told Polygon that during play-tests, the players discovered many different strategies for completing level objects, some of which the developers hadn't planned for. Some have involved front-on assaults, others involve discreet sniping, and the ones that Skelton said interest him most are when players are able to avoid contact with the enemy entirely and still manage to complete the objectives.

"[The game] makes the player put a little bit more thought into what they're going to do before they do it," he said. "And that's what we're going for."