Elements of War’s most bizarre Easter egg

When we preview a game, we’re often seeing an early build and take that into account when doing the write-up. That’s why details about mistranslated English phrases, rough user-interface designs placeholders, or known bugs rarely make it into the pages of previews.

But during a recent demo for Elements of War, a new real-time strategy from Russian developer Playnatic Entertainment, we saw one of the most bizarre Easter egg cutscenes of all time, which was made even stranger by the fact that we were hearing it in a foreign language. The scene begins with a group of US marines on patrol who pass two American babes with some car problems.


Above: Just another day in the United States of America


Above: Daphne assumes that the marines must "have to understand in all vehicles." Love her hat
 
Seeing a Russian developer’s depiction of what an American babe looks like was funny enough with their New York City cap, cowboy hat, and vests. And the girls’ cherry red car only adds to the scene’s over-the-topness. But combine that with the original Russian voice acting and the rough translated subtitles in English and you’ve got one of the weirdest and funniest cutscenes we’ve seen in a while.

In most cases, a gem like this would never make its way past the closed doors of a preview demonstration room, but the good folks at Playnatic Entertainment were nice enough to let us share this rare footage with you, which will be properly localized and polished out of the final build before the game releases later this year.

Above: An odd cutscene to say the least, but it gets better once you use the Recovery Vehicle to repair the car

And now, back to the actual game. Set in 2022, Elements of War places you in a world that’s being torn apart by violent weather shifts as a result of military experiments involving dangerous climate-changing weaponry. With the Whitehouse in shambles, the US Army assumes control over what’s left of America.

Meanwhile, the European Expedition Body (EEB), a coalition of Russian, German, and French military forces heads west to investigate the source of the world’s weather problems in America. There, they encounter the Ravens, a mysterious and hostile military force.

As the mystery regarding these new climate-changing weapons, known as “Elements,” unravels, these factions will clash during the game’s singleplayer campaign. Vehicles like the Aurora A1-TR can launch devastating tornados, the Tartarus can make the ground swallow enemies with earthquakes, and the F1-BL plane can light up the map by blasting infantry with fireballs.





From what we’ve seen, it’s doubtful that Elements of War will pull RTS fans away from the comforts of more well known series. Still, for a game from a smaller developer, it does sport decent visuals with a balanced mix of detailed units. Buildings are destructible and infantry can take cover in them. With no resource management and buildings to micromanage, Elements of War seems more in line with the likes World in Conflict and Company of Heroes when it comes to military RTS gameplay.

Above: An official trailer for Elements of War

The weather warfare gameplay is clearly Elements of War’s most promising feature, adding a bit of sci-fi flair to the usual military strategy affair. Seeing lightning storms and tornados tear through the map, makes it feel like you’re playing something unique. But just because something is different doesn’t always mean that it’s good. It’ll be interesting to see how Elements of War’s weather weaponry really feels once we’ve had some proper hands-on time with the game.

Feb 14, 2011