Original War

Original War is a Czech real-time strategy game from Altar Interactive that brings an unusual narrative framework to the genre: time travel and a fight over a rare resource between American and Soviet factions in the middle of prehistory, where both superpowers sent expeditions with their own conflicting goals. The game combines classic RTS elements – resource gathering, base building, and real-time unit management – with a more elaborate system of individual characters, each with their own name, skills, and experience that develop over the course of the campaign and affect how successfully a unit can carry out assigned tasks.

This emphasis on individual units set Original War apart from most strategy games of the time, because losing an experienced soldier carried real weight and the player was motivated to protect their people instead of throwing them recklessly into battle. The story campaign, told through cutscenes and dialogue, gave the game an unusual degree of narrative ambition for the genre, while the graphics matched their era and handled both prehistoric landscapes and the bases of both rival factions well, with the variety of environments being one of the game's visible strengths.

Original War was praised at the time of release above all for its unconventional combination of a sci-fi story with a prehistoric setting and for its elaborate system of units with their own identity, which earned it a reputation as one of the most interesting domestic strategy games of the turn of the millennium. The game significantly influenced the overall perception of Czech strategy game development and is still cited today as an example of how an established genre can be enriched with an unconventional idea. For players interested in the history of the real-time strategy genre, Original War remains a playable and distinctive experience, set apart from most of the competition precisely by its emphasis on the fate of individual soldiers.