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Exciting news today as we announce Fail Safe, the next DLC for Command: Modern Operations.

Fail Safe is set in 1965 - during one of the most fraught and perilous periods of the Cold War. A Yak-27 has just crashed on the Svalbard Islands after a daring reconnaissance mission over Greenland. As Soviet and NATO forces race to the downed aircraft, a tense standoff is about to escalate into an all out shooting war.

Fail Safe will see you command both old and new platforms. F-86 Sabers and F-104 Starfighters will take on Mig-15's and 21's. Old ships like the HMS Victorious, a carrier veteran of World War II, will take on the newest ships of the 1960's like the Soviet November-class submarines and Sverdlov-class cruisers.

Old naval guns serve next to the newest anti air and anti ship missiles - every ship and air-frame in service will be needed.

The 12 mission campaign will see World War 3 fought out from the Arctic circle and the Atlantic to the Aleutians and the Pacific. Nowhere is safe from the Atom Bomb.

Fail Safe will be out on the Matrix Store and Steam February 25th.

Well this is a surprise!!

The amateur Cold War One scholar part of my brain is fired up with the alt-history implications:

Based on the screenshots, The incident in question occurs in July of 1965. No doubt this complicates NATO's response due to the US already being 4 months into Operation Rolling Thunder in Indochina, and the mass deployment of US ground forces was underway, with the first Marines landing at Da Nang the same month Rolling Thunder started, though the major battle of Ia Drang would still be a few months down the road.

WW3 breaking out at this stage makes for massive implications for both the Vietnam War as well as Communist China, as the chaos of the Cultural Revolution wouldn't kick off until 1966. Does Mao throw in his lot with the Soviets? Does that mean Chinese intervention in Vietnam, possibly resulting in an air-sea battle for the Gulf of Tonkin? I can envision a convoy battle with Soviet subs trying desperately to thwart Vietnam-bound troop ships being redirected to the North Pacific.

The incident also occurs less than a year after Khrushchev is overthrown in the politburo coup by Brezhnev's clique. Interesting to think how the immediate post-Khrushchev Kremlin handles such a crisis breaking out.

In the US, the Johnson Administration, was infamously micromanaging of military matters with regard to Vietnam. But that was out of fear of escalation to a battle with the Soviets and/or Chinese. How does LBJ's military leadership change (if at all) when that clash becomes a reality?

WW3? In 1965? Time to nuke I guess.

Great news, looking forward to it!

A present to myself!

Randomizer wrote: Wed Feb 12, 2025 4:48 am take my money.jpg

Absolutely. Pre-80s Cold War is an insta-buy for me.

So any chance of the Scenario List being posted today?

HalfLifeExpert wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 5:36 pm So any chance of the Scenario List being posted today?

Same. I wanna know what I get to nuke

Can't wait to support the people that have kept this game alive and modernized it over the last 10 years.

Plus I was a boomer sailor during he cold war look forward to wargaming some scenarios from my timeframe

Sounds great!

Standing by to hit "purchase now"!

I'm a bit surprised that we don't have the Scenario List by now. They usually put it up before a campaign DLC is released.

Will this come with an update to 1544? I just brute force 1544 with VMware on my old systems and it runs good enough, but with some little problems I would like to have them fixed as indicated in the tech support.

What time is this arriving on steam please.

Edit: It was 17:17 GMT.

So, I have purchased the new Fail Safe DLC, and it shows up on "My Page" as one of my games, including the serial number for the DLC, but when I go to download it from the "file downloads" (hitting the North America button), I get a message that says "download not available." What gives?

UPDATE: Check the post under the DLC heading for Fail Safe. The Matrix staff has provided a work around for the download issue I mentioned in my post.

I downloaded the installer for the DLC, but get the message that I need to update to 1566 when I try to run the installer.

thewood1 wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2025 6:04 pm I downloaded the installer for the DLC, but get the message that I need to update to 1566 when I try to run the installer.

I know this won't help with matrix version but the update has pushed on steam earlier today.

A bit of a confused rollout to be sure.

I was hoping to have a detailed look at the DLC before work. I got the build 1566 patch via Steam, but it was not officially released on Steam for purchase until after I had to leave for work. The patch did include the DLC so I was able to have a quick look at the Scenario descriptions while they were still locked. I saved a little time later by purchasing it via the Steam App on my phone.

I also got a quick look at the patch notes in the game files. Hope they post this release information soon for everyone.

Definitely a bit of a weird release when you consider the scenarios were partially done back in September, so it's not like the scenarios were rushed or made last minute. Though the small announcement two weeks before release, with barely any promotional material between the first announcement and release does make the release feel rushed.

I finally got the Matrix version. It required jumping through some hoops, jump back through them, and jumping through them again. I can't even explain the logic behind the process.