The first concrete details on Ubisoft's new Tom Clancy franchise EndWar have reached the internet via Electronic Gaming Monthly, and we seem to be getting more excited with every morsel of info we hear.

In case you missed the initial announcement EndWar is essentially an RTS mish-mash of Clancy franchises built from the ground up for consoles.

Apparently it's being directed by ex-Creative Assembly man Michael de Plater, who worked on the legendary PC strategy series Total War.

Action plays out on a Risk-like campaign map with three factions, U.S. Joint Strike Force, European Enforcers and Russian Spetsnaz, available for war duties. According to Ubisoft, each campaign will be different, giving the example that if the US is conquered in one campaign you can start the next "to liberate U.S. soil with a massive new 'D-Day' landing on the East coast."

"[The Battle for Middle-Earth II] was a test case for exactly what we didn't want to do", says the EndWar boss, in reference to re-mapping controls for a console RTS. In answer to this Ubisoft has gone for a tighter, up-close camera along with your bog-standard battlefield map.

Everything in the game is destructible and there's a limit of 12 squads in battle at one time, which you can personalize with your own special abilities, motto and heraldry.

Apparently, there's also some impressive feats in how the AI works in the game. According to the EGM article, squads of heavily armed soldiers, when ordered to a cluster of firebombed cars, will automatically take cover in different ways, taking potshots through windows and over hoods. If a soldier gets shot, one of his squad mates will even drag him back to safety.

The question is, will Ubisoft be able to conquer the dodgy joypad RTS controls we've seen up until now? Let's hope it manages to iron them out before EndWar hits 360 and PS3 early next year.

April 30, 2007