Games with the best sense of scale in battles?

[Stabby Joe]

Having recently gone back and played some of the older Call of Duty games, back when the series was respected by most, I really enjoyed how certain level would emphasize the sense of scale of being in a battle. Even though in a game you're central with objectives for the most part, you kind of felt you were just one of thousand in the thick of it.

And I kind of wish more games did this. Within first person shooters, I can think of early Medal of Honor on the PC as another example.

Outside of FPSs, Mount & Blade multilayer does this brilliantly with 200 player battles so there literally everyone is in the same boat (Napoleonic Wars does this the best in my opinion).

Even Darkest of Days which got a critical lashing still had a sense of scale.

Outside of shooters, the only other I can think of was Viking: Battle for Asgard since it was more grounded (despite the mythology of course) to make it seem like a huge brawl that wasn't one sided.

I wonder, what other games are there that make you feel you're fighting alongside others in a battle? Are there any gems hidden among the wave of solo-one man and one man only Triple-A affairs? You'd think with the technology these days, they'd be able to pull this effect off more often.

NOTE: Strategy games like Total War do get the scale but I'm talking about being in the actual fight.

 

[Stabby Joe]

Ah, just remembered there was Kingdom Under Fire as well. The new one seems to be emphasizing this concept further.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Ah, just remembered there was Kingdom Under Fire as well. The new one seems to be emphasizing this concept further.

Wasn't Kingdom Under Fire the game where you could set fire to forests to flush out enemies?

Anyways, scale.... The sequence in Heavenly sword where you battle three thousand soldiers should count.

 

[Keoul]

Whatever happened to MAG?
It was a shooter on the PS3 that had up to 256 players, It just kinda went off the radar for me.
Haven't really delved into large scale games, unless MMOs count.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

The prologue in The Witcher 2 sort of does it. While there is usually only small groups on screen at once, it does feel massive and makes you feel like a fully scaled siege is going on all around you - the atmosphere is done well, I suppose is what I'm getting at. But of course, you're only ever fighting alongside 5-10 men at most against a similar number at any one time, so a lot of it is simply cosmetic. Whether you count that or not, I'm not sure.

Spartan: Total Warrior's earlier levels featured some rather large battles against big groups of enemies with equally sized groups of allies. The game wasn't very good though.

 

[Magicduck]

Palavan (spelling) In Mass Effect 3

And of course Battlefield 3 for obvious reasons .

 

[Terminate421]

This one comes to mind! Its the reason why I like Gears of war 2 better than the other gears. It actually "feels" like battles are happening.

props goes to rogue squadron as well:

 

[ResonanceSD]

Sins of a solar empire, zoomed in.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was a strong one as well.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Have you ever played Total War? That has some pretty large-scale battles.

 

[Jorec]

Glad to see someone else has played Kingdom Under Fire. Yeah it had a pretty big sense of scale. Especially one the levels where you were commanding a lot of units. While each unit was comprised of anywhere from 10-30 individual characters, excluding the larger siege units. That could get very hectic at times, but it was fun as hell.

I really hope that new game comes out soon.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Sins of a Solar Empire for sure, but even more then that Homeworld.
You would just get massive fleets moving out of the nebula and as your radar screen filled with red blips it was just an awesome Adama moment, especially because the AI always aimed to outnumber you so superior tactics were all you got left.
And the designers made sure it felt like a space battle, the fighters were dog fighting, the heavy frigates would line up and charge their ion cannons, destroyers would move into firing range of their forward cannon then start turning to bring all guns to bare, and the sounds all this machinery made... it was just beautiful.

 

[aphex]

Supreme Commander had a nice sense of scale also upcoming Planetary Annihilation is looking like it will use similar techniques to give the player a good overview of the huge battles taking place across planets.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Shadow of the colossus comes to mind with it's huge lurking bosses.

 

[piinyouri]

I may have the wrong idea here. but the fight with Cronos in God of War 3?


I'm not a huge GoW fan but that scene impressed the hell out of me.

 

[Angry Camel]

Flying the hornets in Halo 3 was pretty awesome. It really made for a nice change of pace after being squashed repeatedly by wraiths at the tower's base.

Serious Sam 3 feels nice and open (the first fight with the ship was pretty intense).

 

[Joccaren]

Most Battlefield series games when played on the PC
Starwars Battlefront games
Any Total War game
Sins of a Solar Empire [I have on save where I have 8 races with full capacity fleets {Around 4-500 ships each, not including strike craft} all just about to jump into one massive battle. I launch it up whenever I'm looking for something epic to watch in scale for battles. It kills my system, but its amazing to watch]
Homeworld games
Most RTS really...

 

[Dandark]

As was pointed out in the OP Mount and blade does a good job of this, I just recently bought the Witcher 2 and am in the process of playing through the prologue, i'll agree that it has a really nice feeling of scale to it, it wasn't that big but it felt big.

I would also add Bladestorm: The hundred years war, when multiple squads got set up then it had a nice sense of scale to it, especially if you were commanding archers.