Crimson Haze

The war, one squad at a time

The jungle hides everything until it opens fire.

Crimson Haze is a squad-focused real-time strategy game set during the Vietnam War. Command an air-mobile company through dense jungle, flooded paddies, contested villages and exposed landing zones—where reconnaissance, positioning and bringing your men home matter as much as firepower.

Fly rifle squads into the fight by helicopter. Hold a perimeter under fire. Get the wounded out of a hot landing zone. Call in artillery, gunships and napalm—but every round lands somewhere, and the people living there will remember what happened.

Your soldiers have names. Villages turn with the war around them. Every operation leaves a mark.

Command the air cavalry

Helicopters are your lifeline.

• Fly fresh squads straight onto the battlefield by helicopter.
  
• Call gunships onto tree lines and hidden positions.
  
• Mark targets for artillery and napalm strikes.
  
• Evacuate the wounded by dust-off helicopter.
  
• Light the night with flares.

Every helicopter can be shot at, and shot down with the men aboard. A cold landing zone is a quiet one. A hot one is a gamble.

Air power gives you extraordinary reach. It does not make the battlefield safe.

The campaign: Danny Mercer, 1965–66

It is 1965. Private Danny Mercer arrives in Vietnam with the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, part of America's newly formed air-mobile division.

Follow Mercer and the men around him through fifteen missions, from the division's arrival at An Khê to the Ia Drang valley, the paddies of Bình Định, remote villages and a firebase after dark.

The campaign is fully voiced, its story told over the radio net and in the field. Missions begin as patrols, searches and routine deployments—but plans rarely survive contact with the jungle.

Meet a patrol at a nearby village and find it gone. Follow its trail north into the trees. Survive the ambush, fall back to the village and hold it while helicopters race in with reinforcements.

Fight off a landing zone under fire at X-Ray. Carry a downed pilot through enemy territory to a waiting dust-off. Hold a firebase through the night with flares, artillery and whatever men remain on the perimeter.

Every mission has its own battlefield story.

The places, military units and operations are historical. Danny Mercer and the soldiers around him are fictional.

Bring your soldiers home

Your troops are not disposable counters.

Every soldier has a name. Squads that fight learn: veterans aim better, hold steadier under fire and take losses harder to break.

The wounded fall where they are hit and bleed. A medic can get them back on their feet, their comrades can carry them, or a dust-off can fly them out. Reaching them may mean holding dangerous ground or risking more men.

Soldiers who do not return are added, one by one, to the company's memorial wall.

Victory is not only about taking the objective. It is about who comes home afterwards.

Hearts and minds

The villages are not empty scenery.

Villagers work their paddies, sit by their huts and run for shelter when the shooting starts. Every village leans one way or the other, and the war decides which.

• Shells, bombs and napalm landing in a village turn it against whoever fired them.
  
• Civilians are never targets. Those killed by your fire turn their village further against you.
  
• Troops who hold a village without a fight slowly win it over.
  
• A village on your side gives up the enemy hiding near it, and supports your operations.
  
• A village on the enemy's side hides their squads, feeds them men and tells them where you are.

The strongest weapon is not always the right one.

The enemy you cannot see

The Viet Cong do not fight on your terms.

They use concealment, tunnels, traps, village networks and prepared ambushes to choose when a battle begins. A quiet tree line may hide a machine gun. A trail may be watched. A village that looked friendly yesterday may be hiding them today.

Reconnaissance matters. Send scouts ahead, question what looks safe and suppress suspected positions before crossing open ground.

Fire from the trees often comes before you see who is shooting.

Fight the war from either side

In skirmish, command US or Vietnamese forces. Each side fights in a fundamentally different way.

United States forces
Build operations around mobility and overwhelming supporting fire.

• Fly squads in by helicopter.
  
• Call artillery, gunships, flares and napalm.
  
• Evacuate casualties by dust-off.
  
• Combine infantry, armour and air power to control open ground.
  
• Hold landing zones and firebases.

Vietnamese forces
Turn the terrain itself into a weapon.

• Hide in jungle and in villages that support you.
  
• Set ambushes and hold fire until the enemy walks into them.
  
• Use tunnels and booby traps.
  
• Raise village militia.
  
• Hear from friendly villages where the enemy is.

US forces dominate when they can find and fix the enemy. Vietnamese forces win by staying hidden, controlling the tempo and striking where the enemy is weakest.

Command your company

Raise rifle squads, machine-gun teams, mortars, snipers, medics, engineers, reconnaissance units and vehicles. Research doctrines and improve each squad's weapons, equipment and training.

Suppression, morale and cover shape every firefight. Pinned soldiers go to ground. Broken squads run.

Fire and movement win battles. Leadership keeps the company together.

Skirmish

Fight across seven battlefields, from river crossings and highland jungle to a rubber plantation and the coast.

• Play as US or Vietnamese forces.
  
• Play from 1v1 up to 4v4, with computer-controlled allies and opponents.
  
• Choose from Conquest, Search & Destroy, Firebase Defence and Annihilation.
  
• Fight by day, at dusk or at night.
  
• Fight through monsoon downpours that slow every man on the field.

No two battles unfold in quite the same way. Patrols make unexpected contact, villages turn, landing zones become contested and hidden positions turn safe routes into killing grounds.

Firepower has consequences

Crimson Haze gives you what people expect from a Vietnam War strategy game: helicopter assaults, gunships, artillery, napalm, jungle ambushes, tunnels and desperate night defences.

It also asks what happens after those weapons are used.

Win the battle. Protect the company. Bring your people home—and remember those you could not.