Video game to be based on book by S&T history professor

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A book by a Missouri University of Science and Technology history professor is the basis for a tactical wartime video game set for release in 2018.
Burden of Command follows the real-life missions of the U.S. Army’s 7th Infantry Regiment, also known as the “Cottonbalers,” during World War II, using American Courage, American Carnage, a book written by Dr. John McManus, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of history and political science at Missouri S&T, as its source material.
“It’s interesting because the game is partially designed around what I wrote in the book and the history that I covered,” McManus says. “It’s really kind of fun to see my own work come to fruition in this gaming world.”
McManus serves as a historical consultant to the game, and has been play-testing it for over a year. He says he looks at the game as an extension of his own work, and wants to make sure it is as historically accurate as possible.
“What I do when play-testing the different scenarios is really subject the game to rigorous historical inquiry,” he says. “I don’t consider myself to be a big gamer. My focus is on how it looks historically.”
To that end, McManus says the game stays true to his book.
“I think it’s pretty much the best I’ve seen as far as historic games,” McManus says. “It’s relentlessly authentic.”
More important to McManus, the game honors the sacrifices and heroism of the Cottonbalers that fought in World War II.
“Respecting the 7th Infantry and the veterans that were there was what was most important to me,” McManus says.

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Luke Hughes, CEO of Burden of Command developer Green Tree Games, says he knows how deeply McManus cares about the 7th Infantry. He says that it is of the upmost importance that the game ...

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