Forty Days Dark

Forty days of quarantine in the dark have failed.

Governments have triggered the Daybreak protocol and put carriers to sea. Yours is short of money, answers to whoever is paying, and faces an outbreak on every continent that doubles every day. Stabilise the cities, or watch them fall one by one.

Run the war from the carrier

• A real-time globe of over 500 cities in 177 countries. Pause it, or let the days run fast.

• Sail the carrier along real sea routes, through Suez, Panama and Gibraltar, and set up forward bases on land.

• Fill the hangar: Black Hawks and Chinooks to carry the Squad, a Supercobra and a Hornet for air support, and a B-2 for when nothing else is left.

• Take contracts, requisitions and bounties from governments, sell Gold bars on the Market, and keep Relations good enough that they let you fly over.

• Hire Specialists and research Liquid Armour, Heavy Armour, Nano-Fabrication and more in the carrier's labs.

Fight in cities you know

Every city is based on the real one, with recognisable streets and locations. In Paris, you hold the Arc de Triomphe.

• Command your Squad in real time, on foot or from a Humvee, a BMP or a Leopard 2.

• Ten kinds of mission: clear a district, rescue survivors, hold a position, sweep, salvage, destroy nests, hunt, escort, secure radars and recover a warhead.

• The Infected hunt by smell, sight and sound. Noise draws hordes, and a country remembers how loud you were.

• Walk civilians to Extraction before they are bitten. Some of them will join you.

• Call in gun runs and air strikes, then hold the LZ for thirty seconds while the ride comes in. Anyone not aboard is left behind.

• Fight at dawn, at noon and at night, in clear skies, showers or fog, on each city's own local time.

Every Operator counts

48 Operators, each with a face, a home town and a past. Six stats, five ranks from Private to Elite, a gun, a blade and three kit slots. The fallen stay fallen. A bite turns an Operator in about six days, unless the surgeon takes the limb and fits a bionic one, and nobody has more than four limbs.

Win the world back

There is no day limit. You win when no city is burning anywhere, and lose when every city has fallen. Strike a country's defences and claim it for its levy, bombard a burning city, or send the B-2 with a warhead, and live with what every government thinks of you afterwards.

Inspired by War of the Zombie.