Rage Software will look back upon 1998 with fondness, as it was a great year for the Liverpool based development house. Rage inaugurated the year with the release of Incoming, a highly successful 3D action / shooter, and will follow it up with releases of Expendable and Savage Arena within the upcoming months. One would expect a company to sit on their laurels and soak in the limelight of their accomplishments. Not the case with Rage. Their current project is Hostile Waters, a 3D real-time strategy with a flavor all it's own, and its set to make 1999 an even bigger year for Rage.

While the screenshots of Hostile Waters might resemble those of Incoming, the game carries with it a lot more depth and complexity than its sibling. Rage game designer Julian Widdows sought out to extract several key aspects from different genres, and combine them with some new features and ideas in order to create a unique gameplay experience. "Hostile Waters does not conveniently fit into a single category or genre, so to define it in simple terms is a little difficult." says Widdows, "In terms of gameplay, Hostile Waters will be a cross between the Strike series, Carrier Command and Red Alert."

"The ultimate aim of the game," says Widdows, "is to totally wipe the enemy from the face of the planet". Doing so however is a little more involved. Players start out each mission aboard an aircraft carrier, which also doubles as the headquarters, war factory, repair facility, radar station and the all in all hip and happening place to be. Each mission has its own set of objectives that need to be met before the player can proceed onwards. These objectives include scavenging (an RTS staple), seek and destroy sorties, escorts and attacking, all in the name of beating the enemy into total submission.