Riot-NEWS

RIOT: Civil Unrest Simulator Game Launching in February

Merge Games Ltd., is set to release RIOT: Civil Unrest, a real-time riot simulation experience. Launching Feb 5 – 7, 2019 across PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, RIOT: Civil Unrest is a unique, thought-provoking experience that places you at the heart of some of the world’s most recent confrontations. Spread across four campaigns and over 30 individual scenarios, from Oakland in California to Tahrir Square in Egypt and Caracas in Venezuela, RIOT: Civil Unrest lets players control either the protestors or law enforcement in an effort to portray a balanced view of each event.

Featuring some of the best pixel art graphics ever seen, RIOT: Civil Unrest was born out of the real-life experiences of its artist and creator, Leonard Menchiari. During the summer of 2011 Leonard attended the NO-TAV protests in northern Italy. There he witnessed first-hand the actions of both the protestors and law enforcement officers which lead him to create RIOT: Civil Unrest. He created it to tell the stories and express the emotions felt during these clashes. What triggers the anger and aggression? Often outnumbered, what does a police officer endure during the conflict?

A complex strategy game, RIOT: Civil Unrest sets players objectives for each scenario. It’s then up to the individual to choose how to tackle each situation, employing different strategies and tactics in order to achieve the perfect outcome. Discover if you can you dispel an angry crowd or overcome a well-equipped militia with RIOT: Civil Unrest. Player performance is rated, aggression can lead to a quick, successful outcome but a softer approach may have the same resolution without damaging public opinion.

RIOT: Civil Unrest boasts impressive crowd behaviour. Each individual character has its own artificial intelligence that gives the overall crowd mass very realistic and fluid movement. The PC version also boasts a powerful editor that allows users to create and share their own scenarios. The editor comes complete with additional scenarios made by the Bologna-based development team, including: G20 – Hamburg, Gilets Jaunes – Paris, Shohada Square – Iran and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

RIOT: Civil Unrest will be available for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in early February 2019.

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Picture of John Breeden II
John Breeden II
John has spent his journalism career covering just about everything, from small-town meetings and crime scenes to Capitol Hill and the U.S. Congress. He got his start writing about games and technology with a computer column called On the Chip Side, which grew to more than 1 million in circulation and ran in newspapers across several states. Today, John is an award-winning journalist with more than 25 years of experience. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Newsweek and many other publications, and he writes a regular technology and government column for Nextgov/FCW and hosts security and educational webinars for FedInsider. He is also the founder of the Tech Writers Bureau and the chief editor of GameIndustry.com. He still loves disappearing into games, whether that means crawling through Baldur’s Gate dungeons deep into the night or planning one more big offensive in the latest wargame.