Seattle Trip 2024 Report Pt. 1

Savage Game Design is well-known for working with MACV SOG Special Forces veterans on its 2021 video game release Arma 3 S.O.G. Prairie Fire. What the casual gamer may not notice, is how deep those relationships are, and how much the studio’s ambitions have grown.

As a follow-up to SOG Prairie Fire, Savage is laying out the design documents and financial plans to massively upscale its operations, and tackle a standalone RPG shooter game with cinematic scale and a compelling narrative that takes the gamer through a full tour as a MACV SOG recon soldier. SOG Out Of Shadow is aimed at a console and PC release in 2028.

Pic: Tilt and Blackjack observe NVA soldiers on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos - concept art for SOG Out Of Shadow

Key to this ambitious project is the material - and the published memoirs of John Stryker Meyer (codename Tilt), Dick Thompson (codename Dynamite) and Lynne Black (codename Blackjack) are central to this. All 3 men served at MACV SOG’s FOB1 and FOB4 at the same time in 1968-9.

Pic: MACV SOG classics - SOG Codename Dynamite, Whisky Tango Foxtrot and Across The Fence, memoirs of intense combat by the three men.

Tilt arrived at CCN in May 1968 and was already an old hand when Lynne showed up a month later. Initially Tilt was 1-2 and then 1-1 of RT Idaho under Spider Parks and Don Wolken. Lynne says he learned a lot about how to survive while listening to Spider, Tilt, Mandolin and others in the Recon bar.

Pic: Tilt (center), Blackjack (far right) and The Frenchman (right) with RT Idaho at CCN 1969

Lynne was assigned to RT Alabama which saw its first combat on a training mission on the Vietnamese coast. Lynne became Alabama’s 1-0 after the October 5th 1968 mission into Oscar 8, which left an approximate 8,000 NVA dead.

Pic: Cadaver Fortress, October 5th 1968 in Oscar 8, where Alabama, under Lynne’s leadership fought 10,000 NVA for over 8 hours. Painting by Sam McIntire, Prairie Fire Art Company.