1997 · Windward Studios · Real-time strategy · Science

Enemy Nations

Enemy Nations is areal-time strategy game from Windward Studios. While well received by various game publications the bankruptcy of the publisher forced Windward to sell it exclusively on their company website.

Released: 15 April 1997
Platforms: Windows
Genres: Real-time strategy Science Simulation Strategy
Developers: Windward Studios
Publishers: —
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Science fiction
Country: United States
Age ratings: ESRB E

About

Enemy Nations is a 1997 real-time strategy video game developed by Windward Studios and published by Head Games Publishing for Microsoft Windows.

›Story

The development of the Hyperspace-Drive triggers a gold rush-like colonization attempt by Earth governments, only to find that habitable (the game takes these as Earth-like) planets are either homeworlds for other sapient species, or colonies of early-evolved species.

Years of build-up and exploration bears fruit: A habitable, rich and lush world with no sentient race is found. However, almost every race intends to colonize it, and soon a full-scale Galactic war will erupt. To solve the bloodshed, the sapient races agree to a competition:

Every race would dispatch a Rocket Ship with a pre-determined size, mass and equipment, stocked with materials, personnel and equipment to create a city analogous of modern Earth technology and infrastructure. Then without interruption from outer space, the base-cities would engage in conflict, with the victor being granted the ownership of the planet. Of course, it is your duty to ensure a new world for your species to claim.

Keywords

colony

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Enemy Nations is a real-time strategy game in which players compete among alien races to colonise an uninhabited planet. The game features random maps generated on an isometric perspective. The game features a windowing system allowing players to open windows to monitor different locations on the map.

Story

Development

Enemy Nations was developed by Windward Studios, the studio of lead designer and producer Dave Thielen. Thielen was a former Microsoft developer and led its development as the first title of the studio. He stated that the game was under development from around early 1995, and was inspired by a range of strategy games incluing The Settlers, Transport Tycoon and SimCity. The game was originally created for publisher Viacom New Media, who was acquired by Virgin Interactive Entertainment; Thielen claimed the studio dropped the game after showing the company the final product.

Following four months of unsuccessfully seeking a publisher, rights to the game were acquired by Head Games Publishing, a Minnesota company founded in 1996 and had distributed level packs for Quake. The game was showcased at E3 1996. Producer Jonathan Knight stated that the game was designed to allow for the complexity of a resource management and city building game, whilst remaining in the real-time action genre.

Reception

According to the developer, Head Games made 5 million dollars in sales of Enemy Nations, and surpassed 35,000 units of sales by late 1998. Stores pre-ordered above 100,000 copies of Enemy Nations by January 1997. The game was in development for 18 months.

Enemy Nations received generally positive reviews upon release.

Legacy

The game itself was released as strictly non-commercial and privately redistributable freeware on October 1, 2005. Windward released the source code of the game in the beginning of 2006. The source code and data were released free by Windward Studios under the following limited license: The source code is hosted since 2009 by the Enemy Nations Revival project on Launchpad.net and since 2023 on GitHub. A downloadable, playable release is available from the GitHub repository.