Soldiers of Anarchy

Silver Style Entertainment

Industry	Video game development
Headquarters	Germany
Products	Soldiers of Anarchy

Soldiers of Anarchy (SOA) is a squad-focused real-time tactics title released in 2002, created by Silver Style Entertainment and distributed by Bigben Interactive alongside Simon & Schuster Interactive.

Gameplay

The core gameplay emphasizes tactical squad management, incorporating the use of vehicles and a wide array of weaponry and ammunition types.

Plot

The narrative unfolds in 2015, a decade after a synthetic virus known as Spontaneous Genome Degeneration Syndrome (SGDS) drastically reduced the world’s population. The storyline follows four soldiers who emerge from a bunker located at the Kalinina military installation in Russia. They find themselves in a fractured landscape inhabited by autonomous survivor enclaves and a trade network controlled by the Seeker Guild, scavengers specializing in pre-apocalypse technology. The area is largely under the influence of various gangs, with the Slingers being particularly notorious for abducting individuals to sell into slavery.

The protagonists take control of a nearby settlement and its radar facility, interrupt a Slinger abduction scheme, liberate captives in New Boston, and eliminate the Slinger gang leader, thereby diminishing their power. They also narrowly evade becoming embroiled in a violent conflict between rival gangs—the Claws and The Final Revolution.

Intelligence surfaces about NOAH, a clandestine organization comprised of soldiers and scientists dedicated to finding a cure for SGDS. To acquire further intelligence, the protagonists involve themselves in the Bergstadt gang conflict, aligning with factions to sway its outcome. Following this, they defend NOAH’s stronghold against an assault.

Prof. Vladimir Czeko, head of NOAH, divulges limited information and expresses distrust toward COTUC (Church Of The Undying Child), a religious faction that survived SGDS and has since advanced technologically.

To locate COTUC’s main base, the protagonists infiltrate a heavily fortified monastery guarded by soldiers, cyborg units, and underground mines. A meeting with a senior COTUC official yields vital intelligence. At this juncture, players must decide whether to ally with or oppose COTUC.

Choosing to side with COTUC leads to an infiltration of a NOAH facility where it is uncovered that NOAH engineered SGDS to profit from an imperfect vaccine responsible for massive casualties. United forces then destroy NOAH’s headquarters. Subsequently, the COTUC leader demands surrender or battle, threatening conversion into Death Knight cyborgs.

Rejecting COTUC involves covertly entering their base disguised as monks and combating intense resistance. It is revealed that COTUC enhanced SGDS into a more lethal bioweapon but lost access to the antidote when their leader fled. With assistance from NOAH troops, the protagonists thwart an attack on their own base. A final offer of alliance from COTUC’s leader is declined.

Depending on player choices, three distinct endings are possible:

• Surrendering to COTUC results in transformation into Death Knights with hopes of eventual escape.
• Engaging COTUC after initially joining them leads to complete destruction.
• Overcoming COTUC alongside NOAH represents humanity’s initial stride toward rebuilding civilization.

Reception

Critical response was mixed, with reviews aggregated on Metacritic indicating average reception.