A select number of gamers who have out-grown many of the stolid offerings by publishers have been yelling for one thing and one thing only from the development community: innovation. It’s a word that’s continually being tossed around whenever a discussion about the direction of first-person shooter games is brought up and it’s usually a word used to negatively describe and denote the current direction for most shooter games.

Well, former key developers from IO Interactive who helped develop Hitman and Freedom Fighters has formed Reto-Moto, an indie studio with a proprietary game engine at their disposal called the Retox Engine. The engine supports high-end visuals within a browser-based environment and allows for a persistent online world to be shaped and changed by the individual decisions and actions of each and every single player participating in the game, whether it be laying out plans in the real-time strategy mode or taking to the ground and fighting for victory in the first-person shooter segments.

Unlike games such as Battleswarm and Savage, each and every decisive victory or loss in Heroes & Generals results in the overall campaign being affected.

But enough about the mechanics, let’s talk about the game features. Heroes & Generals features the latest in FPS combat gameplay including sights, recoil and real-time weapon reactions. There is also the option to man tanks, fighter planes and artillery, and players on-foot will work cohesively with strategic commanders to carry out orders in real-time in hopes of securing victory for their side.

A player’s character will evolve and rank up over time and there will be options to join groups who specialize in specific kind of tactical maneuvers, such as an elite troop who fights behind enemy lines or sticking with a battalion who engages the enemy in large-scale confrontations.

The game sounds pretty tight and if Reto-Moto can pull off a smooth launch this game could easily help redefine what gamers experience from both the first-person shooter and real-time strategy genre.

You can learn more or sign up for an alpha key over at the Official Website.