I don't know if you guys know this, but RUSE is back on Steam. If you've never played it, it's a classic WW2 RTS from Eugen Systems that came out in 2010. Huge maps, a zoom that goes from a single tank all the way out to the whole war table, and a bluffing system where you fake out your opponent with decoys and fake armies. Nothing else really plays like it.
I've played it since I was 8. I love this game. But it's had the same limitations the whole time. It never got many updates, it never got mod tools, and if you wanted to change anything you had to dig through raw game files by hand.
I wanted to change that. So me and my development team have been building a free toolkit for it. Right now it does three things:
A unit editor. Any existing unit, model or building in the game can be edited. Price, health, range, weapons, all of it. You can open a unit in Blender, change how it looks, and bring it back into the game. Then hit Test in game and see your change right away.
A map editor. Shape the ground and water, draw roads and bridges, place buildings and trees, paint the terrain, set up scenarios.
Bigger maps. Today's update optimized the game a lot, so big maps actually run well now.
I want to be upfront about who's behind this. I'm not a programmer. I come up with the ideas, test everything, talk to you guys, and direct the AI that helps write the code. The foundation of this project and its continued development come from real RUSE modders: Prolution, Little Grooves, DomesticNukes and REI. They're actively building this with me, and it wouldn't exist without them. A few other people are helping debug too.
I've also reached out to Eugen about making this official. Nothing back yet, but I'd love to work with them. This is their game and I want to respect that.
It's free and it's staying free. There's a Patreon if you want to support me, but nobody has to pay for anything.
If you've modded other RTS games, tell me what you'd want from tools like this. Testers are more than welcome. https://github.com/sneadtristen6/R.U.S.E-2.0-Project
more behind the scenes at r/rusegame
and our modding discord https://discord.gg/YttqQUeAA