2005–2006 · Real-time strategy prototype

Global

A strategy game built around the scale and responsibility of a commander-in-chief—not the busywork of a single base.

Format: Playable prototype
Perspective: Globe-scale RTS
Focus: Strategy over micromanagement
Archive: 2006 release

Global's globe-scale battlefield, showing Europe, cities, units and the original command interface — The Global prototype in July 2006. Recovered from the original Moxy Studios site archive.

The idea

Strategy at planetary scale

Global began with a question: what would a real-time strategy game feel like if the player directed an entire war instead of harvesting resources and rushing a nearby base?

Developed at Moxy Studios, the prototype put a navigable globe at the centre of play. Borders, cities, supply, energy, terrain and combat became interconnected strategic systems that could be understood at a glance.

What shaped it

Intuitive strategy

Make decisions by working directly with the world, its borders and its cities.

Macro management

Set intent and shape a campaign instead of issuing every low-level order.

Thousands of units

Use the available hardware to communicate the scale of a global conflict.

Global perspective

Move seamlessly from a view of the planet into regional action.

An early Global design screen labelling cities, armies, supply lines and the energy graph — An early campaign-mode design connected cities, armies, territory, supply and energy.

Global concept art showing an enormous machine suspended over a dense future city — A future city watched from above by enormous autonomous machines.

Global concept art showing a dark machine projecting a beam into a city — A machine projects a vertical beam into the city below.

Global concept art showing a person encountering a hovering machine in a narrow city street — A street-level study put people at the scale of the machines.

Global concept art showing a figure using a wall-sized interface in a dark command room — A command-room concept explored direct interaction with a wall-sized strategic interface.

An early monochrome study of a figure using a wall-sized command interface — An earlier composition developed the command interface and its atmosphere.

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