At the origin, a film
In 1998, a landmark film was released: Saving Private Ryan. Directed by Steven Spielberg and carried by an exceptional cast including Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, and Vin Diesel (yes, one of his very first major roles).
The premise is simple: in the heart of World War II, a group of soldiers must track down the last surviving brother of a family to bring him home to his mother, following the deaths of his siblings in combat.
But the film offers more than a rescue mission. It paints a vast fresco of the conflict: brutal engagements, moral dilemmas, and the sacred bonds forged between brothers in arms.
With striking authenticity, the film left its mark on an entire generation, thanks to unforgettable sequences: the June 6, 1944 landing, the assault on the radio tower, the final battle in the ruins of Ramelle.
From the big screen to my childhood bedroom
In 2002, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault comes out on PC. The third episode of a franchise born on PlayStation in 1999. The idea came from Spielberg himself, fresh off Saving Private Ryan: he wanted to turn it into a game. Not just put his name on a box. Actually build something.
It arrives at my house on Christmas morning, in a physical bundle (a different era…).
When the game comes out in 2002, I'm only 8 years old. Probably too young for this kind of game, and yet it left a deep mark on me. I can still picture myself sitting at my desk in front of an old laptop borrowed from my uncle, launching the game for the first time.
The opening mission in North Africa. The ambush. The prisoner rescue. The infiltration of the U-Boat base. At that age, I can't quite explain why, but there's this feeling (rightly so) that what's happening on screen actually happened somewhere, at some point. No dragons. No spaceships. Soldiers, mud, Omaha Beach. This game is anchored in the real.
I went on to play the other entries. Airborne, Pacific Assault (my favourite of the series). But it's Allied Assault that started everything.
Spielberg in your hands
In this case, it's not a metaphor.
Spielberg co-designed the original game in 1999. That's why the whole thing holds together: the narrative coherence is there from the start. His involvement faded over subsequent episodes, but it set a framework that later teams respected.
Michael Giacchino's score is orchestral, restrained. It establishes a gravity that few games of the era dared to attempt. It moved me while playing, without my knowing why. At 8, you don't have the words for that yet.
On Omaha Beach, the game doesn't put you in the stands. You run, you fall, you get back up under fire. Spielberg's film does the same thing through different means. They're not telling the same story. They don't cancel each other out.
The German enemies are never humanised. No names, no personalities. That's consistent with the genre at the time. Looking back, it bothers me a little. You almost forget that war is fought against other human beings.
What it's like to play war at 8
It's precisely because I was young that it left such a mark. An adult would have noticed the stiff animations, the repetitive scripting. An 8-year-old sees Omaha Beach, the sniper mission, the one where you steal the Tiger tank.
Beyond the game itself, it made me want to understand what it represented. I searched. I watched documentaries. I read books. Allied Assault is the reason I became passionate about World War II. Not the film (which I only saw later) but the game.
It was a solitary experience. No one around me was playing this.
Today, when I think about game design, I look at this game differently. I see the strings. The scripted missions, the calculated staging, the sound design working on your emotions. It takes nothing away. A game that holds up under analysis; maybe that's the real benchmark.
The illegitimate child
Allied Assault comes out in 2002 Call of Duty arrives a year later. That's far from a coincidence.
The developers behind Medal of Honor : Allied Assault left EA to found Infinity Ward. Activision picked them up. The project's internal codename: Medal of Honor Killer. Giacchino, who had composed MoH's score, was hired to do the same for COD.
COD isn't just MoH's competitor: it's its illegitimate child. For those who want to know more about the origins of the Call of Duty franchise, I highly recommend The Great Review's excellent video on the subject.
I played Call of Duty shortly after Allied Assault. MoH is more restrained, more historically grounded. COD is more spectacular and more commercially effective.
The genre didn't die. Battlefield 1 and V and V are proof of that. And Hell Let Loosewhich I play regularly, follows that lineage: pushing tactical realism even further, at the cost of the narrative that MoH had made central.
That specific niche that is the historically grounded narrative FPS with strong cultural references is empty today. No one has picked up the torch.
The birth of a passion
Can a strong cultural reference replace game design? Allied Assault says yes.
Not mechanically revolutionary. But Spielberg, WWII, Saving Private Ryan are living in collective memory, that compensates for a lot. Emotion arrives before mechanics, which become secondary support.
What Spielberg did with this franchise remains rare. His involvement faded, but the trace is still there.
I'm almost 32, and I still think about an old laptop borrowed from my uncle, and a beach in Normandy waiting for me after school.
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