Micras Warfare:Covert Ops 2

Micras Warfare Covert Ops 2
Developer(s)	TR3AD
Publisher(s)	Monster Interactive
Writer(s)	Martin Austin
Composer(s)	Sarah Hamilton (Main theme) Thomas Milano
Series	Micras Warfare
Platform(s)	iDrive 2000 Drag0n Egg PC BCRD ADS Astra
Release	1696 AN
Genre(s)	First person shooter
Mode(s)	Single and multiplayer

Micras Warfare:Covert Ops 2 is the sequel to the first-person shooter video game Micras Warfare Covert Ops:Cold War developed by TR3AD and published by Monster Interactive. It is 5th main instalment of the Micras Warfare franchise, the second of the Covert Ops story arc and the second game set in the distant future. The game takes place in 2025 AN in a world challenged by recurring natural disasters and advanced new technologies and the present day where Floria is challenged in maintaining control of a territory that was formerly a nation it committed war against. Similar to its predecessor, the story follows a group of members of Florian special forces. The campaign features Floria in the Covert Ops story arc for the first time with a special task force being challenged to eliminate a threat that could trigger a new global conflict between the Raspur Pact and USSO.

The game was officially announced in 1692 AN with a viral twit on the social media website Tweeter revealing the main antagonist of the game's campaign, Manuel Rodriguez. The game was released in 1696 AN and gained largely positive reviews from critics with praise for its campaign and multiplayer gameplay as well as its zombie mode.

Gameplay

Multiplayer

Covert Ops 2 included the advanced movement system used in Micras Warfare:Future War, allowing players to perform slow boosts in the air as well as wall running and sliding. The game also introduced "Specialists" for the first time, where players could pick from 8 different soldiers, each with either a unique weapon or ability.

Plot

Campaign

In the year 2025, a U.S. special operations team led by Daniel Mitchell and his partner, Mike Harrison, arrive at "The Cipher", a top-security location home to an old military veteran, Fred Wiseman, whom they suspect possess vital information on the whereabouts of Manuel Rodriguez, a Florian terrorist of Los Liberadosian descent. Wiseman concedes that Rodriguez has recently visited him, and shows them a locket that the latter had left behind. Fred then narrates several covert missions undertaken during his military career which span their previous encounters.

According to Wiseman, by 1680 Adam Mitchell had effectively retired from active duty to pursue an obscure existence in Northern Victoria with his son, the seven-year-old Daniel. Their shaky relationship is strained further when Mitchell is solicited by his former handler Jack Hoffman, seeking to recruit him for an assignment during the height of the Central Euran Wars (fictional). Wiseman had disappeared with his men while aiding rebels against Central Euras Marxist government; their actions have already been disavowed by the CIB and Hoffman hopes to rescue any survivors. With rebel assistance, Mitchell and Hoffman recover Wiseman from the river, subsequently locating Rodriguez among a contingent of Liberadosian military advisers. However, a firefight breaks out, and their quarry escapes as the Florians are rescued by helicopter. It is revealed that Rodriguez is responsible for holding Wiseman captive after murdering his team.

In light of this information, Mitchell, Wiseman, and Hoffman begin tracking Rodriguez, who has established himself as a primary arms dealer for bush conflicts in Southern Eura. Later in the year, the CIB authorizes a strike against the unscrupulous Liberadosian-Florian, now making a healthy profit running arms across Jingdaoese-occupied Trakijstania. The trio and Raspurian operative Eriz Sancar ally with the Trajikstani rebel forces against the Jingdaoese. They locate Zi Huang, who survived a grenade explosion with Wiseman in an encounter a few years earlier and interrogate him about Rodriguez's plans before executing him. The Rebels (Which would later become the joint antagonists in the original Micras Warfare game) then betray the Florians and Sancar, leaving them to die in the Trajikstani wilderness until their rescue by two unidentified civilians. At this point, Rodriguez's motive for his seemingly senseless vendetta against the Raspur Pact became clear: his sister Gabriella was grievously injured in an act of arson committed by Florian businessmen for insurance money. The Rodriguez clan, which dominates a powerful drug cartel, was again rocked by loss when the CIB sanctions the assassination of Manuel's father. An embittered Rodriguez now considers the conflict to be personal, but his one-man struggle against the Raspur Pact is interrupted when Mitchell, Wiseman, Hoffman, and local security forces raid his headquarters in the Liberation Islands; during the chaos, an enraged Wiseman inadvertently kills Gabriella with a grenade.

Faking his demise, Rodriguez lives to retaliate against those he holds personally responsible for his sister's death. During the 1689 invasion of El Martina (fictional), he kidnaps Hoffman and Daniel, using them as bait for a trap. He then uses Hoffman to mislead Wiseman, manipulating him into shooting and possibly killing Mitchell instead of himself. Depending on the player's actions during Huang's interrogation, it is implied that Rodriguez had used moles within the CIB. In the ensuing chaos, Rodriguez kills Hoffman and cripples Wiseman. Unsatisfied with his revenge, Rodriguez allows Wiseman and Daniel to live, promising to return to complete his revenge when the time is right. Three decades later, Rodriguez re-emerges as the leader of Día del juicio, a massive populist movement with over two billion followers worldwide including members in Raspur Pact aligned nations. He stages a cyberattack that cripples the USSO’s economy; in response, the USSO bans the export of rare Micrasian elements, fermenting the start of a new Cold War between the USSO and the now Florian lead Raspur Pact. Taking advantage of this stand-off, Rodriguez attempts to bring the two global alliances to a full-blown war by inciting conflicts between the two, secretly aiding Jingdaoese military generals, who worked against Mitchell and Wiseman during their operation in Trakjistania in 1680. Using the intelligence provided by Wiseman, Daniel, now a MARSOF Commander code-named “Eagle”, leads MARSOF forces in the renewed search for Rodriguez.

Shortly after gathering intelligence from Wiseman, Eagle and MARSOF infiltrate Palesmenia investigating a spike in activity in the region. There, Eagle’s team encounters a computer engineer under Rodriguez's employment, warning them of a cyberattack with a Celerium device, a quantum computer capable of hacking any computer system. Eagle's team is later deployed in Trajikstania, attempting to gather intelligence on Rodriguez's plots. During the infiltration, Rodriguez discloses the Name of a target, "Crown" in a private island resort in Florian Eura. Eagle and MARSOF operatives Harrison and Soloman later infiltrate the Islands, finding out that "Crown" is a woman named Christine Barrett, a former employee of Rodriguez's shell corporation, Tritone. Barrett was the main developer of the Celerium device, and as a means of wrapping up loose ends, Rodriguez had deployed mercenaries for her abduction, led by his second-in-command, Tomas Carvallo. Soloman, Eagle and Harrison either rescue Barrett by killing Carvallo, or he escapes with her.

MARSOF later has a lead on Rodriguez in Çakaristan, where MARSOF asset Faiz infiltrates Rodriguez's cell to help Eagle facilitate the leader's capture. The player, as Faiz, has a choice during the mission. Rodriguez, suspecting Faiz's disloyalty, orders him to shoot the captured Harrison. If the player chooses not to shoot Harrison and instead attempts to shoot Rodriguez, he fails and is executed, but Harrison survives and is rescued. If the player chooses to shoot Harrison, Faiz survives, and Harrison is not present in any conversations or missions thereafter. Rodriguez is successfully captured, but this was a ruse for Rodriguez to hack into the Florian military's computer infrastructure on the aircraft carrier the Sharp, seizing control of the entire Florian drone fleet. Soloman is revealed to be Rodriguez's mole within MARSOF, and facilitates Rodriguez's attack—Rodriguez escapes with Soloman's aid, and when Rodriguez breaks into the bridge of the Sharp, Soloman shoots the soldiers guarding Admiral Johnson. What happens next depends on the fates of Faiz, Carvallo and Barrett. Barrett will be absent if she was not rescued. If Faiz is alive, he dies either shielding Barrett from Soloman or killing Carvallo (if he is alive by this point). If Faiz is dead, Barrett will be killed. The player, playing as Rodriguez, has the choice of either killing or wounding Admiral Johnson. If the player only wounds Johnson, and the player has completed all of the Strike Force missions, MARSOF and SDC enter an alliance, then the player is later informed that the SDC sent hundreds of drones to defend the Sharp, and consequently, Johnson was able to save the ship and its crew. Rodriguez escapes the ship while Soloman is caught, and will be executed by Harrison if he is still alive. Rodriguez then uses the drones to stage an attack on Dragonmoor during a meeting of Raspur leaders, hoping to kill them and cause catastrophic damage to the global economy. Eagle escorts Florian President Walsh to safety amidst the drone attacks.

MARSOF eventually finds the source of the transmissions responsible for the hacking to Florian Eura, where Eagle leads MARSOF forces into recapturing the facility in the final mission and apprehending or killing Rodriguez. There are different endings depending on the actions the player takes throughout the campaign, such as whether or not the Raspur Pact and the USSO are able to enter an alliance with each other, as well as determining the fates of certain individuals in the game. During the main campaign, the player may choose to participate in optional Special Team Missions. The Special Team Missions involve MARSOF attempting to curb the USSO’s global influence by preventing them from forcing neighbouring countries into the alliance, with one such mission being to rescue Barrett from Carvallo if he escaped with her in the previous encounter. Eagle himself does not participate in these missions directly, though he can command the forces remotely from a command centre. If the missions are completed successfully, the USSO is weakened enough to ally with MARSOF, and assists the player later in the campaign, for example, in sending its own drones to rescue the Sharp.

Zombies

A century after the dimensional breaches in Micras Warfare:Covert Ops Cold War, a failed experiment leads to the zombie underworld being reopened once with the MARSOF Zombie Strike team, Team 9, tasked to close the breach once again and destroy the facility.

Development

Micras Warfare:Covert Ops 2 is the fifth game in the Micras Warfare franchise and the second entry of the Covert Ops series. The game was supposed to be released after Micras Warfare 2 but internal disagreements between employees of VISOR lead to the game being put forward earlier. The Alpha for iDrive players only was released in 1693 AN and was available for three days. In 1695 AN the open beta was opened for players of all platforms. The game was officially released in 1696 AN after fixes of bugs from the beta.

Marketing

Official announcements and marketing for the game was first released in 1692 AN with multiple widespread posts on the social media website, Tweeter from Monster Interactive and game developer TR3AD.

At an FBA game between Coldey Rockets and Northcliff Raptors, star players from both teams were noticed wearing hats pregame with the traditional Covert Ops symbol which was later confirmed as advertising for the upcoming game.

Music

Song Name	Theme of	Notes
TR3AD intro	TR3AD intro	Played when loading the Main Menu.
Covert Ops 2 main theme	Main theme
Covert Ops 2 multiplayer theme	Multiplayer theme
'Crown'	'Crown' mission music
'Trakijstania dash'	Trakijstania dash
Rodriguez's theme	Rodriguez's theme
Assault	Assault multiplayer theme
Railway station	Railway station and Shopping mall multiplayer theme
Zombies	Zombies Theme