So when you see Clive Lindop, lead AI designer for Operation Flashpoint 2 rise up out of his chair and lovingly mutter “mmm, mini-gun…” while stroking a screen showing the said weapon, you certainly get the impression that the internal team Codemasters has working on Operation Flashpoint 2 has a bit of a thing for military hardware.

And if ever there was a franchise in need of a bit of TLC, it’s Operation Flashpoint. The original, Cold War Crisis, was fantastically well received when it launched on the PC in 2001, as were its two expansion packs, Resistance and Red Hammer. But after that, things went pear-shaped. First came the veritable war crime that was the Xbox port, Elite (which was so bad it was included in our 21 worst games of the Twenty-First Century), followed by Codemasters and Bohemia agreeing to go their separate ways.

Given these problems, it would almost have been understandable if Codemasters had binned the whole franchise. With the original game getting on a bit, its developer having stormed off in a huff and the military FPS subgenre teeming with high profile rivals, persevering was always likely to be the harder option. But that’s exactly what Codemasters did, taking the franchise in-house and entrusting it to its own host of developers – a decision that so far, appears to be bearing fruit.

With the advances that have been made in gaming since Cold War Crisis was first released, it came as scant surprise when Lindop announced that its sequel will receive a much more televised feel, akin to the war documentaries seen on TV. The scenario’s also changed, switching from the titular 1985 Cold War Crisis of the original to a more contemporary setting in Dragon Rising. On this occasion, China, Russia and Japan have all started bickering over the small Pacific island of Skira. With Skira also conveniently positioned on top of one of the world’s biggest gas and oil reserves, the US military is dispatched to give the Russian military a hand in fending off the Chinese.

Documentary presentation style aside though, Lindop promises that Dragon Rising will retain the same intense, terrifyingly realistic feel that garnered so much praise in the original. The statistics alone are mindboggling: the island is 220 square kilometres in size, and features a wide variety of terrain, including 1.5 million trees. So vast in scale is the island that Lindop says you’ll be able to see the smoke from battles many miles in the distance. And there will be few scripted moments in Rising Dragon, with the game largely reliant on natural bottlenecks to start fire fights.

The physics and AI have also been built around this uncompromising drive for realism. Fire your weapon, and the projectile it fires will behave realistically, thanks to the use of ballistic drop. When that bullet meets its intended target, the effect it has will be no less realistic, so if you’re hit in a limb, you’ll certainly know about it. Likewise, who you hit will also determine how the enemy reacts to things. Take out a platoon’s commanding officer, and this will weaken the unit as a whole far more than if you shot a regular soldier.

The flipside to this is that when at full strength, the AI does represent a very capable foe. Enemy forces will attempt to use the environment to their advantage, can call in air strikes or an artillery bombardment, that sort of thing. That the AI is that responsive and intelligent should come as no surprise though, as Codemasters has spoken to combat veterans to ensure everything is as close to the real thing as possible.

Even the scenery has been subjected to this onslaught of realism. Not only are the buildings you find in the game destructable, the way you reduce them to smouldering rubble is also done in the a realistic manner. One example Lindop gave was how targeting a building with a rocket propelled grenade wouldn’t actually destroy it, due to the way the RPG itself explodes on impact. Indeed, from the way Lindop described it, the actual hole the round will leave in the wall is actually disappointingly small.

That said, you will have plenty of scope to cause some serious damage. Over 50 vehicles will be included in the finished game, ranging from troop carriers to AH-1 attack helicopters, and each has been superbly detailed. To prove this, Lindop zooms in on the aforementioned helicopter, allowing us to peer into its cockpit. Even smaller details – such as the rotor blades twisting – have been included. The weapons your troops carry are no less impressive. Not only will there be a sizeable selection of these, you’ll also be able to customise them.

With multiplayer modes that include co-op and head-to-head (including support for up to 32 players and battles featuring multiple units), Operation Flashpoint 2 is shaping up nicely at the moment. There’s still a fair chunk of development time to go (the game’s not due out until next year), but we’ll be sure to keep you posted on future developments.