A futuristic hellscape opens up as all the players look down upon the map. Each player is receiving orders from their commanders and viewing the random generation of the scene in front of them. There are partially destroyed buildings made mostly of glass and some strange metal. All the buildings seem to focus on flowing lines highlighted by blues, purples, and the occasional reds. Destroyed and functional cars alike dotted the streets. Based on the structure of the map, it appeared to be the team deathmatch esk game mode called “Controlled Mayhem”. The match was a set twenty minutes that ended with the team with the most kills being named victor. Each lieutenant has a squad of bots to support them that they select and command. If one of the AI squad members is killed, they don't respawn until the lieutenant is killed and respawns himself; but if a Lieutenant is killed, everyone of his forces respawns with him and their respawn timer is extended at a fixed rate.
Once the game finished loading, the pregame interface appears. The match title and setting appear overlaid on top of everything in big fancy lettering. “Controlled Mayhem in Ruined Future”. As the Commander, Tanner began by identifying what forces he had to command; organizing them by class and function. Liam went for the rogue like cloaked assassin, while Austin and Rake selected their usual ranger and support classes. For this match, Austin selected the sniper class and surrounded himself with some close quarters combat troops armed with a mix of shotguns and pistols, and a few mid ranged assault riflemen. Rake set himself and his team up solely with riot shielders armed with short to mid ranged sub-machine guns. The other two Lieutenants played the riflemen classes, teamed with a myriad assortment of AI’s that looked like they just randomly selected bots so they could move on to the gameplay. While this isn't uncommon to see, it was always super frustrating to see someone do as it made little sense to tanner why you wouldn't just optimize your team so you could have the best chances at victory.
The commander overlay was a thing of simplicity and beauty. Depending on the game mode and setting, different abilities that could be used strategically would be available along the bottom row of the screen. These were for commanders to use at critical times to sway fights or, like most people used them, to just randomly throw out whenever off cooldown. It also had a few command functions to set the spawns for your team which appeared in the lower left corner and the direct command functions in the bottom right corner. Tanner knew the direct command functions were one of the many pitfalls available to commanders. They gave you the ability to directly control the troops that were under the command of your lieutenants, overriding whatever commands that had been given. The reason this always fails is it redirects all the attention of the Commander to a small part of the map, narrowing his focus and typically causing their ego to run wild if things don't turn out the way they desired. Most of the time, that commander's attention remains on that small subsect of the battle and this can be easily taken advantage of. Less acknowledged but equally detrimental, it disrupts the trust between Commander and Lieutenant, making the lieutenants question commands given because they don't feel trusted.
Once tanner sets everyone's spawns, he starts closely surveying the map. This city is split in two, divided between two islands connected by a few bridges in the middle. The larger of the two islands is clearly designed to be what one might consider the slums to look like in the future. Not overly filled with tropes, but definitely a few hard to miss similarities to other futuristic scenes that have appeared in pop culture. Cars that appear to run on some wild form of propulsion, probably some kind of stable nuclear engine, random NPC robots that roam around try and fail to clean up the debris. Every building is covered in arbitrary lights of blue and red that don't appear to do anything but match the aesthetic and all the buildings are unnecessarily rounded. The other, much smaller, island is probably where the game intended the upper ruling class to be homed. Dotted in beautiful, towering skyscrapers made of glass. Each building had its own unique shape and design. One that stood out from the others was a very wide but notably shorter structure that was circled by massive rings attached to the main body of the tower by large silver supports beams angled at 45. They appeared to be walking paths dotted in exotically beautiful plants and trees.
Tanners team was set to spawn on the larger of the two islands. Being that they had be selected to spawn on the larger island, the spawn points were set throughout the zone with large distances between them. The lower-class districts were full of stacked and merged building complexes that provided great cover and concealment but spread out their forces. The upper-class island was the exact opposite. Dotted in extremely tall skyscrapers, the availability of cover was almost zero, apart from the occasional park district that had a small smattering of trees. This, however, enabled them to setup great sniper roosts and spawn in a more compact area. The solution was easy.
“Rake, take ‘FlayinManti$’ with you and push the north bridge. All you’ve got to do is draw fire. If you can, try and push to the closest tower and scale it, take care to avoid any mines placed by the sniper groups. Austin, setup our own sniper roost in one of the taller buildings between the middle and south towers. Keep your eyes on the sky and take out any enemy snipers before they can cause chaos among our forces. Liam, I want you to force your way through the middle bridge, taking every enemy down in your path. You goal is to take down their spawn locations so they can only spawn at their home base. ‘OutboundShadow’ please focus on pushing the south bridge once you see Liam about a quarter of the way across the middle bridge. Austin, if you find yourself some free time, try and give Liam some assistance.”
Austin and Rake reply at the same time “Roger”
“You got it boss” Liam quickly replies.
Tanner got a few thumbs up pings from Flayin and Shadow before the match started. Liam's rush went perfectly, as usual. Once Shadow started the secondary push across the south bridge, tanner reinforced the idea that the attack on the middle bridge was a faint with a quick use of his mortar ability. He also tracked the progress of Rake the north bridge. Rake and Flayin were making slow progress across the bridge, tying up resources and attention of the enemy commander. Flayin had lost over half of his 15-man team due to a lack of attention, but Rake was making up for is with his almost impenetrable defensive wall that was slowly marching across the river. It didn’t take long for Liam to complete his trek across into the center of the enemy island. With the constant spam of abilities on the south gate from tanner, the enemy commander had diverted all his attention to countering the attack and hold that bridge. It was clear that the enemy commander had fallen into the pit of taking control of one of his lieutenants’ forces to try and stop the southern invasion. The game was all but done from the beginning, now they just had to finish the job.
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OutboundShadow took a few hard falls, having his unit completely eradicated a few times before the other team realized what had happened. Liam had destroyed their center spawn point and was starting to push south to flank the forces who had congregated there after Tanners double faint. Liam also lost a few of his team lancing his way across the river but was saved from devastating losses by Austin's sharp shooting. The push across the bridge had brought up and old fight between Liam and Tanner. Austin loved to initiate fights between the two old friends, but this was his favorite, mostly because the fight was so nonsensical.
“I love sniping on these big futuristic maps, but I wish I could get a bow here.” Poked Austin
“Oh my fucking god, how many times do we have to do this. No one, not a single person, is using a bow in a futuristic setting. It makes absolutely zero sense.”
“Dude, there’s no reason you couldn’t have a bow in the future” retorted Liam.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t, I’m saying you wouldn’t. There's no reason.”
“Other than it being awesome, and silent?”
“It just can’t possibly be as effective as guns. You can’t actually believe a futuristic bow is more awesome or effective as, say, a handheld rail gun? Maybe even a ray gun, flame thrower, or some other tech that we don’t even know can exist.”
“You’re just not giving the bow the respect it deserves. It’s a classic, Hawkeye proved that they could be perfectly effective.”
“Hawkeye is only effective cause no one actually attacks him. Iron man shows the true potential of futuristic tech, making Hawkeye look like a fucking idiot.”
The two argued back and forth while playing at a level that always impressed Rake. He has always been a solid gamer. Few people he knew rivaled him in capability when he set his mind to the game, but his three friends were on an entirely different scale. Especially Tanner, his ability to split his attention across an entire field of battle without allowing himself to become emotional or bogged down by the decision-making process was so far beyond the standard that it was damn near superhuman as far rake was concerned. Then, sometimes he would add a rant like this on top of those skills without any disruption to his game play. Sometimes it was arbitrary arguments like what superhero would win in a fight, iron man or iron giant? Other times, it was what the proper way to cheat a tabletop game was. But most often, it was politics. The guys loved probing him about sensitive topics because Tanner could rant for hours about anything, especially if he believed there was a path to convincing people he was right. Not that he would ever admit it. Tanner could do all this without missing a beat in his game play; And like so many other times, the impressive nature of it, caused Rake to fumble his role.
“Anything a bow can achieve, can be achieved by a propellant weapon. If you’re looking for silent and awesome, a magnetic rail gun is the way to go. That would be sick, and the damage it could output would be devastating. Rake, are you playing the game or focusing on us? You just died out of nowhere. Hell, even a optimized compressed air gun seems more realistic for the future.”
“Sorry boss, I just don’t understand how your mind works.”
“What are you even talking about? We are just talking about nonsense while playing a game, its not that weird?”
“talking while playing the sims is normal. Having an in depth debate while playing a complex game at a pro level is something completely different”
“Their commander isn’t that good, he’s only diamond. This game was over once Liam Broke their lines. Regardless, you need to get back to the north bridge before they break through, I sent Austin you hold them back while you get back into position.”
“Alright, I'm headed that way, thanks for the backup Austin”
“Hey Tanner, don’t you have strong feelings on abortion?” probed Liam.
“NO!” yelled Austin and Rake at the same time.
_ _ _ _
To close out the game, Tanner had Liam claim the unique building with the ringed walking paths around it. Doing so cut off the retreat capabilities of the northern enemy spawn point. They just had to wait for Rake to push the enemy back into them. Austin’s squad also made their way to the building, setting up his sniper’s nest and picking off enemy lieutenants as they emerged from buildings attempting to retreat from rakes looming advance. Eventually, Rake claimed their spawn point and the game had effectively ended. Claiming their 43rd victory in a row.
Tanner knew that Austin was being scouted for pro teams. He had started streaming a few years back and had gotten quite a bit of attention for his raw skill, which is completely warranted. It was also evident that he wasn’t going to join any teams that Tanner wasn’t apart of. Austin was clearly waiting for the right team and offer to try and him to join a team with him. He wasn’t much for following orders though, Tanner wanted to lead; mostly because he couldn’t stand incompetent leaders. Its not like taking care of your people is difficult or even takes time. Joining a team would just mean that he had to report to someone about his favorite hobby. Echoes of war isn’t a solved game, there’s too much random generation and autonomy from the players for there to be a finite way to play. The nature of the game demanded on the spot adaptation and unique strategizing that just couldn’t be truly planned for. Which would make a team manager and trainer just infuriating to deal with. He knew eventually Liam would work up the confidence to ask him to join a team together, and given that they were best friends, he might consider it for the right price. The two friends had developed quite the following along with Austin and Rake. They never got what anyone would consider to be famous, but they were known within their genre pretty well. Eventually that day arrived, and man did they have the right price; $280 thousand a piece on a two-year contract. Not that they ever got to enjoy that money.