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Do you have 5 minutes to take a survey that will help influence the future of Flashpoint Campaigns? Link here: https://forms.gle/dNQwywxJL8nJhZn5A

Whether you've played a Flashpoint Campaigns game or not, we'd appreciate your opinion and feedback!

The purpose of this survey is to gather data from wargamers, strategy fans, and the existing Flashpoint Campaigns community. We want to make data-driven decisions based on player expectations for the genre at large, and in particular discovering the feature gaps we need to develop in future updates and games.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey and directly help improve our games.

- On Target Simulations Development Team

I have all the iterations of Flashpoint since it first fell out of the womb. I do think Cold War is very good. I filled out the survey, but almost didn’t. To be honest, I would like to have some assurance that your team will stay the course on CW and polish it to the lustre it deserves before diverting yourselves by running off elsewhere slapping on DLCs and other stuff. I would feel better knowing that the original content was stitched up well and not simply left in the dust.

I understand that the team is small, and they all have other parts of their lives to live, and I am sympathetic to that. But, I also am imbued with a certain amount of cynicism, having years of incomplete products having come and gone off my hard drives.

One last. I watched a YT video yesterday where some influencers (I despise that word and the folks who title themselves with it) who were carping about FCCW because of the amount of documentation and required reading included just to get off the ground with the game. Their take being a game should be such that you can just dive in and intuit it all out in thirty seconds or it’s old-fashioned 90s hooey. I really appreciate all the efforts the team has made including all the docs and tutorials that it did. It may not be entirely complete or bulletproof, but you took a good swing at it. Don’t ever not do that.

We are a dinosaur of sorts in the 21st-century world of video games, with a thick, heavy (virtually) manual and a need to actually read to excel at the simulation. Simulation, not a game. Games since the mid-90s have become increasingly about flash over substance to appeal to the masses and make money. I can't fault the industry for wanting to make a profit, and gamers for being less computer-assembly-inclined and just wanting to play something without having to learn to do so. That said, we are happy in our niche and plan to continue making the simulations we want and keeping the level of detail we have had for 20+ years.

Hub6Actual wrote: Tue Jan 13, 2026 9:45 pm I have all the iterations of Flashpoint since it first fell out of the womb. I do think Cold War is very good. I filled out the survey, but almost didn’t. To be honest, I would like to have some assurance that your team will stay the course on CW and polish it to the lustre it deserves before diverting yourselves by running off elsewhere slapping on DLCs and other stuff. I would feel better knowing that the original content was stitched up well and not simply left in the dust.

I understand that the team is small, and they all have other parts of their lives to live, and I am sympathetic to that. But, I also am imbued with a certain amount of cynicism, having years of incomplete products having come and gone off my hard drives.

One last. I watched a YT video yesterday where some influencers (I despise that word and the folks who title themselves with it) who were carping about FCCW because of the amount of documentation and required reading included just to get off the ground with the game. Their take being a game should be such that you can just dive in and intuit it all out in thirty seconds or it’s old-fashioned 90s hooey. I really appreciate all the efforts the team has made including all the docs and tutorials that it did. It may not be entirely complete or bulletproof, but you took a good swing at it. Don’t ever not do that.

Fortunately, a good chunk of the survey seems focused on continuing to expand on the wonderful work done with Cold War already, rather than dropping it to work on something else completely different. I am not one to chase DLCs or demand endless developer involvement, like many younger gamers seem wont to do nowadays, but I think there's significant room to expand on FCCW as a base.

I did the survey, but forgot some praise and a small critique. Keep in mind I have no idea about what it involves but I find the patches come slow. Over all I think Matrix is slow overall about getting patches out for their games, always waiting for a spot in the release que. For that reason I really appreciate Vic with VR Designs for his open beta releases. The praise I forgot to mention is the documentation, it is second to none, comprehensive and well put together.

CapnDarwin wrote: Tue Jan 13, 2026 11:16 pm We are a dinosaur of sorts in the 21st-century world of video games, with a thick, heavy (virtually) manual and a need to actually read to excel at the simulation. Simulation, not a game. Games since the mid-90s have become increasingly about flash over substance to appeal to the masses and make money. I can't fault the industry for wanting to make a profit, and gamers for being less computer-assembly-inclined and just wanting to play something without having to learn to do so. That said, we are happy in our niche and plan to continue making the simulations we want and keeping the level of detail we have had for 20+ years.

Respect to that! I don't consider myself old (30s) and I can totally relate to the "flash over substance" that is plaguing the industry, especially in the last 10-15 years.
I appreciate small teams doing very interesting and niche games that actually look good enough for modern gaming. I keep repeating how one of my favorite games when I was a teen, Hearts of Iron 3, and my disappointment with the dumbing-down of the long awaited 4th title took me into this path of discovery of wargames (although I keep playing other genres too). Same could be said of other games in other genres, and how smaller teams are coming up with hardcore titles for niches audiences that actually keep growing because they are after quality rather than gimmicks.
I think part of the appeal is that the "game" is actually a simulator, and I hope this attachment to realism keeps intact in the future, while looking for ways to make it "easier" (faster maybe it's a better word) to play (I think the new SOP settings and the Formations Move are a good example of that). I don't mind that the game takes dozens of hours to learn, as long as the reward of playing it pays off.

Hub6Actual wrote: Tue Jan 13, 2026 9:45 pm I have all the iterations of Flashpoint since it first fell out of the womb. I do think Cold War is very good. I filled out the survey, but almost didn’t. To be honest, I would like to have some assurance that your team will stay the course on CW and polish it to the lustre it deserves before diverting yourselves by running off elsewhere slapping on DLCs and other stuff.

I had some of the same concerns, because the game does still need polishing in some aspects and hopefully will have long term support so the community can feel encouraged to create content. However; I'm ok with extending the game with DLCs, as I see it as a good way of extending the life term of the game with new scenarios, time periods and armies; while keeping the dev team working on the title for polishing (Owlcat long term support and polishing of their RPGs goes together with DLCs). Also, it provides a source of income and support for the team; that otherwise would need to look for in another game or simulation work.

Finally, I would love if there were also ways to make the modding simpler. I was digging into map creation last night and oh boy, that's looong process. I was hoping being hex maps it would be simpler.

DIVM wrote: Wed Jan 14, 2026 11:46 am I keep repeating how one of my favorite games when I was a teen, Hearts of Iron 3, and my disappointment with the dumbing-down of the long awaited 4th title took me into this path of discovery of wargames (although I keep playing other genres too).

Very true. HoI3 started with a lot of problems, but they worked on it and by patch 4.02 it was a great game. It is no chance that the "Black Ice" mod is still being developed - the HoI3 version I mean.

HoI4 was... Dunno. You could play as France, declare war to Germany as soon as they annexed the Rhineland, LASSO ALL YOUR DIVISIONS (????!), draw an arrow towards Berlin... there, you won.

It is a terrible game. It is also the most played Paradox game on Steam, so, there you go.

However, we are not dinosaurs. A "compatriota", Fabrizio Vianello, is publishing very sought tabletop wargames through his "Thin Red Line Games" company. Here is an example:

https://bigboardgaming.com/designer-not ... dark-wood/

And here there is an interview with Fabrizio where he points to one of his inspirations...:

https://theplayersaid.com/2024/12/30/in ... ine-games/

BTW, I bought the original "FC: Red Storm" after I saw the review by another "compatriota", Vincenzo Beretta, on what was (a very sadly "was") The Wargamer:

http://web.archive.org/web/201411241530 ... -interview

Those were the days and the reviews. However, NATO is working with Fabrizio Vianello right now. And it is my understanding that FCCW is one of the two games Matrix sells to professionals - the other being Command.