Panzer Corps 2

[Asid]

A Message from Panzer Corps Developer Kerensky
11 Jul 2024



Hi Generals,

Unfortunately, one of our developers, Kerensky, a cornerstone of the Panzer Corps team, couldn't join us for the celebration of Panzer Corps Day as he is hard at work on the imminent release of the Fall  of Poland DLC. However, he strongly wanted to be part of the celebration, so he has written a special message to all of you, fans of the Panzer Corps franchise:

“Hello Panzer Corps Community,

This is Kerensky here, author of the Panzer Corps Grand Campaign DLC series and Panzer Corps 2 Axis Operations series.  On this special Panzer Corps Day, I wanted to share some thoughts with you all, talking about the past, and maybe a little bit about the future of Panzer Corps as well.

I’d like to start with… what even is Panzer Corps Day, why mark the date at all, and what it means to me.  We want to celebrate the Panzer Corps series today, on July 11th, because this day marks the 13th year since the original game’s release in 2011.

For me personally, I’ve spent the majority of my adult life working on this title.  There is no project I’ve spent more time, energy, and effort into making.  I’m not sure there will ever be anything this grand in the years ahead, I can’t imagine what other project I would devote more than a decade of my life to.  My Slitherine Forum badge goes all the way back to January 2011.  I joined to participate in Panzer Corps.



So as long as the Panzer Corps Series goes on, I would like to try and mark this day each year.  Today is a day dedicated to anyone who has spent untold thousands of hours over more than a decade to create this game, but it is also a huge thank you to all the dedicated players and fans of the franchise that have supported our work.  We would not be here with the thousands of gamers who play and enjoy all of the Panzer Corps content.

We developers create these games, but it is only through the thriving playerbase that our game properly lives on and continues to exist.  Without your support, we could ill afford to spend all the time we have on this game series.
So thank you, for playing and experiencing our game.  It has been a dream come true to make games for a living!

Looking Back
To share some amusing stories of Panzer Corps development over the years…

I remember when I first heard of Panzer Corps.  Some strategy gaming webpage mentioned some company I hadn’t ever heard of was making a Panzer General spiritual successor.  And me, remembering fond memories of playing the original Panzer General on my original PlayStation console, I was definitely eager to see what this Panzer Corps was all about.

Immediately, I fell in love with the game.  Panzer General, and Panzer Corps, have always hit that sweet spot of gameplay for me.  Not too complicated in mechanics to be discouraging to dive into, but advanced enough and steeped in real history to make it the perfect gateway game introducing people to the genre of wargaming.

Right away, I busied myself with all kinds of aspects of Panzer Corps.  I saw so much potential in the series, I really wanted it to reach its full potential.  Back then, before the original game release, I did a whole bunch of volunteer work to help the game out.  I was doing gameplay testing, making MP scenarios, extending the USA invasion campaign with extra battles, cutting gameplay trailers, writing briefings, making custom scenarios to push the game to new heights beyond the traditional Panzer General ‘capture all VH’ gameplay...

Yes, I’ve been writing the majority of Panzer Corps briefings since the original game.  It was a real trip for me to go back and look at the original Panzer Corps tutorial, and realize I wrote it over a decade again.  You can tell it was my writing, even back then I was naming characters ‘Wagner’.  Just like Stefan Wagner from the Axis Operations series, heh.



And that gameplay trailer for the original Panzer Corps I mentioned, I definitely snuck my name of that unit being ‘21st Pz Kerensky’ in there.

[YouTube]https://www.youtube.com/embed/RBRJy4ojdVM[/YouTube]

Even way back in 2011, I’d been pushing Panzer Corps to grow with more varied and interesting scenario types and gameplay.

The most amusing story of all though.  For over a decade working on Panzer Corps, from the original game, through 10 Grand Campaign DLC, into Panzer Corps 2, through 9 Axis Operations DLC…

I have never actually met the main developer and person behind Panzer Corps in all those years.  I’ve never had a face to face meeting with Alex Shargin.  We have worked together on this series for untold countless hours, sometimes day in and day out.  There have been many occasions where we have done development around the clock.  Because our time zones are so far apart, I would often work for about 12 hours, and as I was finishing for the day and preparing to go to bed, Alex would be logging on and starting his workday.  We would exchange messages, update each other on the tasks we had done, what next priority was coming up.  Maybe about 10 hours later I would be awake again and returning to work, and Alex would be winding down his work day, and we would exchange messages on the tasks he was working on.  And as he would turn in for rest, I would now be working again in a new day.  Round-the-clock game development, not unlike the Round-the-clock bombing campaign the US and British waged on Germany during WW2.

But for all that time, I don’t actually think I’ve ever worked so much with anyone on anything in my whole life as I have worked with Alex.  But we have never actually ever met.

What a crazy world we live in.

Looking Forward
Outside of celebrating this day as a very special day for everyone involved and interested in the Panzer Corps Series, we have our eye on the future of the Panzer Corps Series as well.  Truth be told, we were really hoping to have Fall of Poland available for our community to start playing already, but a series of unfortunate delays and real life tragedies have gotten in the way of that.

We are definitely eager to get Fall of Poland out and available as soon as possible, we want to hear what our players think of this potential new series, and its additional elements of characters and extra storytelling as icing on top of the core Panzer Corps gameplay that has proven itself time and again as a true Classic.  We hope you saw and enjoyed the second Dev Diary we’re posting today, Fall of Poland is coming very soon!

Beyond the potential new War Stories series, well, we want to see what you, the players, think of War Stories and Fall of Poland.  We certainly hope you enjoy it, and the new extra twist added with that series, but only time will tell.

In closing, I just want to say that it has been a very unique and amazing career these past 13 years for me to work on the Panzer Corps franchise.  Panzer Corps 2 itself is four years old, but still shows amazingly healthy community size and playercounts, and we would absolutely love to support the title to its own full decade mark.

Thanks again for joining us in celebrating Panzer Corps Day and supporting our game for over a decade!  Here’s hoping there will be even more special days ahead for Panzer Corps to celebrate!”