GVMERS

The Rise and Fall of Operation Flashpoint (2019x2)

Fecha de emisión: Ene 21, 2019

In 1997, a video game company named Bohemia Interactive was established in Prague. The Czech Republic had historically never been a hotbed for video game development, but Bohemia’s founders – Marek Španěl, Ondřej Španěl, and Slavomír Pavlíček – were on a mission. They were determined to create a first person shooter that would capture the reality of war more accurately than any game before it; an engrossing simulation that would depict what real battlefields were like, and feature an unprecedented sense of scale and attention to detail. After a challenging and prolonged development period, Bohemia delivered on these ambitions in 2001 with Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. The game was both a triumph within the genre of tactical first-person shooters, and one of the first major successes in the history of Czech-made video games. But it was also beginning of two wars – a war between Bohemia and its publisher, which would attempt to capitalize on the game without its creators’ involvement, and a war between Bohemia and itself, as the studio struggled to balance its ambitions with its capabilities. When the dust finally settled over a decade later, Operation Flashpoint had been stripped of its appeal and future. But Bohemia had survived, and started a new series, ARMA, that picked up mechanically and spiritually where Cold War Crisis left off. Unlike its predecessor, ARMA received a more muted reaction from the industry when it debuted – yet eventually grew into an empire within the military simulation genre. In a world where abandoned video game franchises so rarely receive spiritual successors that continue in their footsteps, the story of the Operation Flashpoint and ARMA is a shining exception; a reminder that not all inactive series become lost forever.