This Civil War First-Person Shooter Is the Historically Accurate War Game You Never Knew You Needed

On its face, “War of Rights” sounds almost like a joke. 

The Civil War-themed first-person shooter from Campfire Games offers “350 player battles with a focus on historical authenticity,” according to the game’s description. I’m old enough to remember when “GamePro” magazine offered up a Civil War shooter as one of the fake games in its annual April Fools’ Day “Lamepro” parody issues years ago (although it may have been the Revolutionary War? I don’t remember for sure). After all, who wants to play a tactical shooter where you have to take 15 seconds or longer between shots? 

Well, the players of "War of Rights" apparently do: Even years after its 2018 release, the game still draws thousands of players every day for visceral, historically accurate combat, especially on Saturdays. 

The gameplay in “War of Rights” is elegant in its simplicity. Players can join battles as a unit or as individuals. They pick a unit type, mostly infantry or artillery, queue up for the battle and get dropped in near a flagbearer. Most of the battles are based on the Antietam Campaign of 1862, fought near where the Potomac River flows out of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Players typically load immediately, since they spawn with an empty rifle, and then rush to a nearby skirmish line or formation before marching into the field. From there, they may take a high ground, trade fire in claustrophobic town streets or crew a cannon overlooking the battlefield.

“War of Rights” might be the only FPS out there geared explicitly toward history buffs. Take players such as Michael Ovsenik, who leads an in-game unit from his home in Michigan, and Josh Cottrill, a Navy veteran living in West Virginia. Both are part of the self-styled “Midwest Brigade,” and while they play plenty of other games, their interest in "War of Rights" grew out of a deep interest in Civil War history. When Ovsenik saw the Kickstarter for "War of Rights" in 2015, he was hooked immediately.

"I turned 12 or 13 around the time when the original PBS 'The Civil War' series came out by Ken Burns, and around that time came the movie 'Glory,'" Ovsenik tells Military.com. "I got very interested in the Civil War and military history in general. I started doing tabletop wargaming with my brother and reenacting as well. We did reenacting for about 20 years, Civil War reenacting."

For Cottrill, he started learning about naval history while listening to audiobooks as a sailor on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. That led him to Civil War history, which helped get him into the "War of Rights."

That historical background proved useful, because "War of Rights" has mechanisms to force players to engage each other in historically accurate ways.

"The game has mechanics that reward you for following period drill manuals," Ovsenik said. "If you're going forward with your buddies, and you're in line and you're close to each other, then you can reload faster. If you're killed, it costs your unit less tickets than if you're out of formation. And you can tell that a lot of reenactors play it, because they're using period-accurate drill commands and that kind of thing."

Those tickets are a major part of the "War of Rights" combat system. For each death of a player in formation, an army loses a single ticket, but they lose three tickets for a soldier skirmishing near their unit or five for someone who has struck out on their own. Between the tickets and the reload speed, the game really incentivizes fighting in tight formations. The game also immerses players by getting rid of most of the normal player heads-up display. No ammo count, no map and absolutely no kill or experience notifications. It can even be hard to tell if you're winning.

But the heart of communities such as Midwest Brigade isn't a love of "War of Rights" (or any of the other 13 games the group plays together). Connected through their love of gaming, the members of the brigade help each other with exploring other games or military history, building computers and even coping with major life events.

Indeed, Cottrill is the unit's chaplain. The title started as a bit of a joke: He had stepped down from "commanding" the unit's artillery forces but wanted to keep his captain's bars, and so he made up the title as it was a non-command position performed by officers. But then people started coming to him with their issues.

"We even had a community event for a member who wasn't part of our group who passed away suddenly," Cottrill said. "One day, he's fine, and the next day, he was only in his 20s, but the next day, it snapped. He had an aneurysm. Nothing else was wrong with him, but he was gone. So we had an event for him, held an event in his honor. We recorded it and sent it to the family. They had so many warm things to say in thanks, because the game meant a lot to him and it meant a lot to them for us to do this. I think that says a lot about this community."

Players who want to try out "War of Rights" can find it on Steam. But a quick warning: While groups such as the Midwest Brigade offer the prospect of camaraderie and bonding among history buffs, the player base in public lobbies was noticeably toxic. As a result, it can be frustrating trying to do a pickup game in Civil War combat when half the players don't want to stay in formation.

In "War of Rights," more than in any other title I've played in my 30 years of gaming, I strongly recommend finding a group you vibe with and play with them rather than in public matches.  Luckily, Campfire offers a list of companies players can join on the game’s website, and some groups actively recruit on Reddit or other gaming forums. And while a Civil War-themed FPS may still seem like one big joke, you’ll quickly discover that the communities that form out of it are anything but.

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