Focus Home Interactive announces Wargame: European Escalation, a Cold War real-time strategy game in the works at RUSE developer Eugen Systems for release in the first quarter of next year. Here are a couple of European Escalation screenshots, and here's a bit on the game:

Wargame: European Escalation features intense real-time battles, stunning graphics, and the amazing IRISZOOM™ system, which allows a continuous zoom from a global view of the map to the heart of the action. With real strategic gameplay, rich content, integration of EugenNet© and its numerous online services, Wargame: European Escalation will unite all the world’s biggest strategy fans.

Set in the rarely explored period of 1975-1985, Wargame: European Escalation pits NATO (USA and Western Europe) against the Warsaw Pact (Soviet and Eastern European countries) in battles that explore “what could have been.” The specter of nuclear warfare loomed large over the real Cold War, but this catastrophic outcome was the ultimate last resort as everyone knew that the first one to start nuclear hostilities would end up wiped out just the same. Large, armored offensives through Europe would certainly have been the core of this hypothetical war; and this is what the game’s explosive campaign takes you through!