14 DAY TRIAL // Codemasters has announced that Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising is set to be released sometime in fall, quite a few months after the launch of its rival, Armed Assault 2 (during summer).
It seems that Codemasters needs a bit more time to make sure that its military simulation is the best that it can be. Dragon Rising should come on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and the PC.
Operation Flashpoint 2 is set to offer players the biggest game space seen in a shooter until now. The island on which all the action takes place is 350 square kilometers big and the game engine can support a drawing distance of around 35 kilometers. Codemasters is saying that even the fighting itself takes place at range, rather than the close quarters where the combat in most shooters takes place.
Codemasters is stating that Dragon Rising will emphasize the fragility of the human body and the small amount of hits that it can take before it is unable to fight on while also trying to make sure that players who are not interested in really hardcore simulation find something interesting within the game. The various difficulty levels do not change the health of a character, but rather give the player more tools, like a compass and a radar that can help increase his/her chances at survival.
The plot is rather convoluted. The island on which Dragon Rising takes place is disputed by Russia and China but the playable characters are all Americans. Apparently, they have been sent in to take the island on behalf of the Russians and, of course, the conflict will involve all of the three sides. Bohemia Studios, the developer of Armed Assault II, said many times that Operation Flashpoint was a sequel only in name, with the mechanics of the series preserved in the videogame that it is creating.