The real real life Monte Cassino “battle” was actually 4 battles that occurred over a few months from January 17 to May 18 1944. Therefore, It was a challenge to condense the highlights of this crucial siege into a single experience. As a result, this mission was probably one of the largest missions I’ve done in my career - both physically in-game map wise and also mission length wise. Not only that, but the mission provided a backdrop to a key decision point in the game - you could rewrite history to prevent the historical bombing of the monastery at the top of the hill.

That in itself created a technical challenge where we had to create some new functionality inside the campaign map logic to account for different map “states” so that we could load a “bombed” or an “unbombed” version depending on the player’s choices. This also meant some differences in gameplay objectives and encounters depending on the version the player entered. This affected the terrain geometry and necessitated swapping of in-game assets (for example, a “ruined” version of the monastery that you had to fight in, or an “intact” version that the player could carefully fight around). Furthermore, there was the additional challenge of trying to convey a realistic sense of Monte Cassino’s scale whilst keeping the map “RTS camera friendly” and traversable by units both friendly and enemy alike. However, the result was that the hard work and attention to detail was worth it, with reviewers praising this specific mission as one of the highlights of the Italian campaign.

The mission started off the player in a dense, rubble strewn town and tasked with taking over the town hall on the outskirts. This provided a quick introduction to the tempo of the map and some of the historical opposition the player would face - dug in enemies that the player had to probe to find weaknesses. Fighting through the town, the player may rescue some Italian Partisans, depending on the version of the map played. Eventually, the main enemy base in town, Hotel Continental, would be assaulted and captured, providing a natural mid-point to the level. Next, the player advanced up the hill through fortified positions, gradually working towards being able to assault the hilltop itself. Finally, the advance on the hilltop itself revealed a couple of epic moments of the Polish arriving and ambushing the Axis forces. Depending on whether or not the abbey was bombed, the player would then root out the Axis forces hiding in the ruins, or cleared them out from the hilltop grounds before the mission concluded with an Axis general retreat.