Allied Assault

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Lieutenant Mike Powell, the protagonist, is a skilled U.S. Army Ranger and later an agent of the Office of Strategic Services. Powell and a squad of Rangers are in German-occupied Arzew, Algeria, fighting on the North African front. The squad fight their way into the city, but an ambush kills all the team except Powell. Powell continues into a German base, where he rescues S.A.S. agent Major Jack Grillo and retrieves his equipment. The major and Lt. Powell split up, with Grillo securing transport, while Powell does sabotage in a motor pool. He links back up with Grillo, who has commandeered a jeep with a mounted machinegun. The two drive to a German airfield, where they successfully destroy the Fw 190 fighters and Stuka dive bombers grounded there. While Grillo distracts the German forces, Powell sneaks into a bunker, cuts off Axis radio contact and fights his way to a coastal lighthouse to signal the Allied fleet to begin Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. He escapes with Grillo in a German transport truck. For his conduct during the mission, which included saving another American POW, Lt. Powell gets awarded with the Legion of Merit. Following the Allies' success in Africa, Powell and Grillo are sent to German-occupied Norway to infiltrate the city of Trondheim, where a Kriegsmarine U-boat is being outfitted with a prototype Naxos radar detector. Grillo makes it into the base first, but is killed in action by German guards while opening the front gate for Powell. Powell fights his way into the base, where he disguises himself as a German officer and infiltrates the loading dock. He goes to the lab where he destroys the Naxos prototype and gains access to a submarine intended to be fitted with the prototype and blows it up. He fights his way out of the base, where he is extracted by an Allied squad. After the mission Powell gets awarded with Norwegian War cross with Sword medal, for securing the U-boat manifest. Thanks to Powell's efforts, the German U-boat threat is neutralized, clearing the way for the Allied invasion of Europe, Operation Overlord. Powell, as a part of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, is sent to Charlie sector of Omaha Beach under Capt. Ramsay, where he and his fellow Rangers storm the bunkers, despite taking heavy casualties, and secure the beach. He is sent into the countryside beyond the beaches to assist the US airborne troops in

In Their Own Story

Rain slicked the cobblestones of the French village as Powell checked his rifle. The silence was heavy, broken only by distant artillery. He signaled his squad forward, eyes scanning the shadowed windows for movement. Somewhere in this town lay the evidence needed to stop the German war effort.

Reader's Guide

In Allied Assault, the player takes on the role of Lt. Mike Powell of the United States Army Rangers who works for the Office of Strategic Services. Single-player missions include assaulting Nazi bases in Algiers and Norway, storming Omaha Beach on D-Day, and rescuing comrades behind enemy lines in occupied France. The game's levels are often compared to Steven Spielberg's 1998 film Saving Private Ryan; many of the levels are direct quotations of the scenery (or even complete sequences as in the Omaha Beach mission) in the film. Omaha Beach was re-created in Medal of Honor: Frontline for consoles. Multiplayer contains four different modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Round Based, and Objective mode.

Did You Know?

• The game was developed by a small team of 22 developers led by Vince Zampella.
• Vince Zampella and Jason West later formed Infinity Ward to develop the Call of Duty series, which took inspiration from both Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Allied Assault.
• The first expansion pack, Spearhead, features Sgt. Jack Barnes voiced by Gary Oldman.