Whether these political themes make any difference to the overall game - which visits Iraq in its battle against alien forces - remains to be seen. What is clear is that Smith’s team is exploring the kind of gaming terrain that has already been carefully trod by Half-Life 2, Call of Duty, Gears of War, and others. There’s always a danger that a game like this won’t bring anything new to the table. What it does do, however, is bring together much of what already makes these games work so well. The majority of the game is squad-based, and it’ll be down to the player both to command these sidekicks - in a one-click Brothers in Arms style - and to manage their morale. The team takes their lead from you: mess up and they start to pull back, act more conservatively, to the point of hiding and blind-firing from behind cover. Get ballsier and your team gear-up too, pushing forward into close-quarters melee combat.

With on-rails vehicular combat, destructible scenery, a blizzard of believable physics, and Half-Life 2-style in-game cinematics, BlackSite is looking very promising indeed. It’s is not far off either, so what lies ahead for Smith after completing this mission? Well, the open-ended urban fighting of BlackSite 2, of course. Yes, they’re already working on it.