News and Industry Happenings

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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John Breeden II

As a journalist John has covered everything from rural town meetings to the U.S. Congress and even done time as a crime reporter and photographer.|His first venture into writing about the game industry came in the form of a computer column called "On the Chip Side," which grew to have over 1 million circulation and was published in newspapers in several states. From there he did several "ask the computer guy" columns in magazines such as Up Front! in New Mexico and Who Cares? in Washington D.C. When the Internet started to become popular, he began writing guided Web tours for the newly launched Washington Post online section as well as reviews for the weekend section of the paper, something he still does from time to time. His experience in trade publications came as a writer and reviewer for Government Computer News. As the editor of GiN, he demands strict editorial standards from all the writers and reviewers. Breeden feels the industry needs a weekly, reliable trade publication covering the games industry and works tirelessly to accomplish that goal.