US Army has announced the launch of a new gaming system called “Operation Overmatch“. It will allow the US Army personnel to have a visual reference and test the virtual versions of the future gear, equipment, vehicles and operation concepts. As Lt. Col. Brian Vogt (United States Army Capabilities Integration Center) said: “Gaming is not just for entertainment anymore, now it is for experimenting”.

Watch the trailer of Operation Overmatch game below:

The Operation Overmatch game will allow collecting feedback and suggestions which can be further used in improving the gear and equipment that is being designed for the future adoption and deployment. It should also help to understand how the soldiers and officers find solutions to modeled combat scenarios and use that data in new tactics development.

The research of this project started back in 2013. The game itself was in development for about a year. It is the result of the collaboration of ARCIC and Army’s Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Software Engineering Directorate’s Army Game Studio. The game is a part of  Early Synthetic Prototyping (ESP) program.

Right now 100 testers are working on the game. The beta version will be available in October. US Army soldiers of different ranks and specialties as well as reserve and civilian personnel, cadets, members of academia and industry partners of the US Army will be invited to sign up and test the game thus contributing to the development of future equipment. The game may later become accessible for all the US Armed Forces service branches as well as international partners and allies of the United States.