Capturing Bagram, A Mission Design for the ages

Recently Bagram airfield was in the news once again. “What?”, would be the reaction of most people reading this. Bagram is a small city located near the capital Kabul, in Afghanistan. An airfield here was constructed sometime during the Cold War, I am not sure about the dates because this is not a pontificating blog post on geo-strategic issues and history (I can hear that sly voice in your head say “Thank God”), which became the most iconic symbol of US military presence after its capture during the United States invasion of Afghanistan in that nation’s pursuit of Osama Bin-Laden after the 9/11 attacks. The US forces further developed Bagram airfield which reportedly had Pizza Huts and McDonalds inside the airfield. Bagram was finally handed back to Afghan government on 1^st July 2021, ending a long chapter in US presence in the Indian sub-continent.

The capture of Bagram airfield is the main objective in the second mission titled ‘Breaking Bagram’ in the Electronic Games’ 2010 reboot of Medal of Honor. While the game is a very flawed one, it is one of the video game titles which is very close to my heart. The design of this mission, for me, remains one of the foremost examples of a nearly perfect objective based linear First Person Shooter. The mission design is such that even while being boxed in predefined pathways, you as a player, feel that you are free to go anywhere.

The mission opens with the player riding shotgun in a pickup truck, armed with a machine gun, assaulting the outskirts of the Bagram airfield along with local Afghan forces. Action moves into the heavily fortified gates of the airfield, where the Taliban forces are proving hard to dislodge. The level design till here is run of the mill, but when you are dropped in the ruins of buildings outside the airfield, disembarking from the vehicle, this is where things start getting interesting. The ruins feel real, with steel reinforcement bars protruding from the destroyed columns, and half destroyed storeys forcing you to keep your head in a swivel for enemy who may shoot at you from above.

Another interesting section in the mission is the run through an aircraft graveyard, with fuselages of various aircrafts being dumped in an area, and sometimes stacked upon each other, in which snipers hide and shoot you, and you trying to do the likewise. The discerning player will see the MiG-21 fuselages scattered in various states of disrepair, adding to the feel of a land which was invaded by the Soviets and left alone after a long struggle by the locals in which both sides lost a lot of men and materiel. It is the small things like this that leave a big imprint on the players mind, transporting them to a place which feel real.

The use of verticality is also another thing that makes the mission interesting, with catwalks in aircraft hangars being used to add much needed space to confined areas, and giving the option to the player to approach what is essentially a set-piece in different ways. The game forces you to be aware of the spaces above or below your position, which in my experience most first person shooter games generally overlook.

The missions in general in this game are well designed and the story feels realistic and grounded, but bugs and the similarity to other games in the same genre led to the game getting mixed reviews at the time of launch. However, many developers can still take the lesson from the level design of this gem of a mission.

If you want to experience the same for yourself, fire up that old game (if it is still playable in your system, I had to tweak many a setting to replay this mission again myself) and give it a spin. You may like it as much as I did.

Happy hunting!