Defilade Wishlist
A winter battle from above: shells bursting in a snowfield, infantry running beside a burning armoured carrier, and a trench winding through the trees.

Defilade

Isometric RTS, modern warfare

Command intelligent troops that take cover, rescue wounded comrades, dive from grenades, vault obstacles and dig trenches. Build your base, secure supply lines and fight across fully destructible massive battlefields that feel alive.

Release
Coming soon
Multiplayer
Co-op and versus
Platform
PC
  1. Milestone200K wishlists
  2. UpdateGrasslands and rivers
  3. ComingThe demo

I'm a big Red Alert fan, that's how I got into RTS games back in 1996. But in all the RTS games I've played I never really saw soldiers use cover properly.

It was always the same garrison buildings, or standing near a wall so the game counts it as cover.

So Defilade started out really simple, just soldiers using real cover, and it's grown a lot since then. Now it's a full RTS with base building, supply lines, tanks, helicopters and drones. It's heavily inspired by Red Alert 1 and Sudden Strike 2, and I've always loved that 2D isometric look, so that's what I went for.

Reinhardt RBGames

Infantry

Soldiers who want to live

The soldiers in this game think for themselves. They take cover, lean around corners, save the wounded and much more.

A desert village under attack: infantry in the ruins of mud-brick houses, armoured carriers in the streets and smoke over the rooftops.
Squad 1Holding 6 men
Seasoned
Steady fire1 man low

Alpha 3

Bravo 3

RiflemanSquad 1

Tyler Sullivan

Private first class31 / 45 XP

  1. PVT
  2. PFC
  3. CPL
  4. SGT
  5. SSG

2Down

PatientTemper

Steady fire 23 rounds

Peek

Watch

  1. Any wall, crate, car, wreck, trench or window works as cover, because they actually check the shapes around them. Behind a low wall they crouch and pop up to shoot, but if the wall is too tall they'll move to the corner and lean out instead.

  2. Near misses keep their heads down and pin them in place, and when something explodes close by they flinch.

  3. Ammo runs out too, so a position that's running low starts firing single shots until it stops completely. Soldiers will also grab ammo off the bodies they walk past.

  4. Every man has a name, a rank and a temper of his own. The ones who live through a fight get promoted, and a sergeant reacts faster and shoots straighter than a private.

  5. When someone goes down, his mates go and get him. Medics patch him up twice as fast.

  6. Cover stops working the moment they're flanked, so they move. No scripts and no fake cover spots, just soldiers who want to live.

Wounded and medics

Nobody leaves one behind

  1. DownCPL Martin

    When a soldier gets hit badly he goes down screaming for a medic and starts bleeding out. If he's still got the strength he'll crawl to cover.

    CPL Martin lies wounded in the snow of an open street while his squad shouts from cover against a house: he's hit, smoke, cover him, don't go out, get a rope.

  2. To casualtyBravo

    His squad puts down covering fire, then someone runs out and drags him back by the shoulders while another soldier walks backwards next to them shooting.

    One soldier runs out across the street towards the casualty, shouting hold on, I'm coming, while another calls to pin the enemy down.

  3. DraggingCPL Martin

    They also sometimes use smoke grenades to conceal the rescue. The wounded guy even keeps firing his pistol while he's being dragged, that's one of my favourite things in the game.

    The rescuer reaches the wounded man in the open and a soldier at the house calls out that he's throwing smoke.

  4. RopeAlpha

    If the guy who runs out gets shot too, nobody runs across that ground again. Someone throws a rope from cover, the wounded man grabs it, and whoever's close by helps pull him in.

    Behind a drifting smoke screen, soldiers at the corner of the house haul on a rope stretched out to the wounded man, one of them shouting together.
A soldier in winter camouflage bends over a wounded man in the snow beside a fresh shell crater and asks him if he can stand.

Hand upCPL Martin

Once he's safe someone patches him up, and he gets back up to fight.

Medics are twice as fast at it. He gets weaker each time he goes down though, so he can't do it forever.

If you build a medic tent, stretcher bearers will run out and bring your soldiers back, even the ones who died. Two of them carry the stretcher, and if one gets shot the other one drags it the rest of the way. After a bit in the tent they limp back to base and they're ready to fight again.

  • Medic tentTrains medevac men and heals the casualties they bring in.
  • MedevacStretcher bearer. Brings the wounded and the dead back to the tent.

Surrender

Prisoners who talk

Soldiers can surrender, but it's rare. If a soldier is cut off and under fire and his whole squad is down, he might throw his rifle away and put his hands up.

When the Rebels capture one of your soldiers, they walk him into their tunnel system and interrogate him, and he'll give them actual live intel about your base, which you can see in a little chat dialog. Your side can take prisoners too, and they'll give up intel on the march back.

  1. Hands up! Don't move!
  2. Okay! Okay!
  3. Where's your base?
  4. North-east. 300 metres. You can't miss it.
  5. What are they building?
  6. They're putting up a barracks, 200 metres to the west.
  7. I just want to go home.
  8. Don't we all.
On the march back, in the snow town.

The small details

Grenades come straight back

Grenades
Throw a grenade at a soldier and sometimes he'll pick it up and throw it straight back.
Blasts
Explosions send soldiers flying, and some get back up all dazed and stumble around for a bit.
Movement
They vault walls, slide into cover, dive away from grenades and fight hand to hand up close.
Armour
Tanks smash right through walls and rounds bounce off the armour. If a track gets blown off the tank is stuck.
Drones
FPV operators fly kamikaze drones into your soldiers and tanks. Your men can hear them coming and will try to shoot them down or dive out of the way at the last second.
Voices
Speech bubbles pop up when they shout orders or call for a medic.
Two columns of armour cross a cratered snowfield towards a line of trenches and trees, with vehicles burning where the shells have landed.

Base building and supply

Built by hand

Buildings don't just pop out of the ground here. You place one and your units have to walk over and build it by hand, even in the middle of a fight.

Your FOB (forward operating base) is the most important thing you've got. Your troops can fight from it and they run back to it for ammo. Finishing a new one raises your unit cap, and if you lose your last one it's game over.

Four forward bases joined to the depot by supply roads. Cutting a road stops supply to every base past it.
Depot
Forward baseSupply lineLive
Forward baseSupply lineLive
Forward baseSupply lineLive
Forward baseSupply lineLive

Each FOB you finish lays its own road back to your lines and supply trucks start driving it. Supply pays for your units and buildings, so if the enemy ambushes your trucks or cuts the road, the FOBs past that point stop getting supplies.

I personally haven't seen a supply system done like this in an RTS before.

Every road is open.

  • Base

    Forward base

    Your men dig it. A supply road follows.

  • Base

    Barracks

    Trains infantry.

  • Base

    Factory

    Builds vehicles.

  • Base

    Research

    Unlocks the marksman and the tank while it stands.

  • Base

    Helipad

    Where gunships are bought, land and re-arm.

  • Defence

    Trench

    Dug by your nearest infantry.

  • Defence

    Machine gun

    A heavy machine gun on a tripod. Needs a man on it.

  • Defence

    The tower

    Six men on top see over every wall.

  • Defence

    Bunker

    A roof over a dug trench. Mortars and drones can't get in. Five tank rounds bring it down.

  • Defence

    Tank traps

    Vehicles can't cross. Infantry fire over them.

You can build barracks, factories, research buildings, helipads and medic tents, and dig in with trenches, concrete walls, wire, mines, tank traps, MG nests and watchtowers. The Rebels can even build complex tunnel systems.

All of it can be shot to pieces and repaired, and any FOB can be captured by whoever walks in and holds it. The AI plays by the same rules as you, and it will come after your FOBs.

Three sides

Blue, Red and the Rebels

Regulars in MultiCam with the Leopard 2, APC and Bradley. One of the two superpowers, with the armour, the helicopters and the artillery.

  1. Private
  2. Private first class
  3. Corporal
  4. Sergeant
  5. Staff sergeant

  • Infantry

    Rifleman

    One rifleman. He joins the section that is short.

  • Infantry

    Gunner

    One machine gunner.

  • Infantry

    Marksman

    Long-range rifleman. Needs research.

  • Infantry

    Medic

    Treats the wounded.

  • Infantry

    Drone op

    Flies FPV drones at what you point at. Out of the fight while he flies.

  • Infantry

    ATGM team

    Two men and a Spike missile launcher.

  • Main battle tank

    Leopard 2

    Needs research.

    Main gunCoaxial MG

  • Fighting vehicle

    Bradley

    Tracked carrier with a cannon. Ten inside, six on the roof.

    CannonTOW missile

  • Gunship

    Apache

    Bought at the helipad. One anti-armour hit brings it down.

    HellfireRockets

  • Transport helicopter

    Black Hawk

    Carries twelve and ropes them in. Two door gunners.

  • Rocket artillery

    Grad

    Rocket battery, thirty rounds out to 170 m.

What's coming

One huge campaign

No date yet. I'd rather not promise one and miss it.

The campaign

The main focus is single player. The big goal is a grand campaign on one huge fictional map set in modern times, blue vs red, with two superpowers fighting proxy wars to take over a big country.

Your soldiers will level up and carry over from mission to mission, and if one of them dies he's gone for good, so you get really attached to your guys.

Multiplayer

And yes, multiplayer is coming and it's already working! You can play co-op with a friend against the AI, or against each other.

The soundtrack

I'm also a musician and producer, so I'm making the soundtrack myself.

Media

Straight from the game

All of these are straight out of the game. Even the logo is spelled out with the game's own units.

The word DEFILADE spelled out on desert sand with tanks, trucks and rows of soldiers from the game. TrailerWatch it on Steam
DEFILADE spelled out in the snow with the game's own tanks, trucks, rocket launchers and soldiers, with gunships over burning ground behind.

Thanks for checking it out

I post new stuff on the Discord all the time, so come hang out there. And if you like what you see, a wishlist really helps me out.