Few levels in modern multiplayer gaming have been more beloved than Wake Island, first released as the Battlefield 1942 demo. I was one of the players who became hooked on the game after that first nibble in 2002. Wake Island was devilish, a horseshoe-shaped piece of land that had to be defended both from air attacks and from Japanese landing craft arriving from the ships in the distance. The island's airfield was of utmost importance for both sides, and became the site of the most brutal virtual battles in the game.

I remember being a part of a league that played Battlefield exclusively; at one point, a teammate drew a map of Wake Island on a whiteboard and we studied it, planning our defenses and how to best attack the island. Jeeps allowed soldiers to move across land at great speed, while tanks could make both an imposing attacking force and an easy target. Whenever I think of Battlefield, I think of Wake Island.

EA and DICE are including the "Back to Karkand" DLC in the package when you buy Battlefield 3; Wake Island will be included once more, marking the fourth time the map has popped up in the series. We're going to look at the real-life history of Wake Island, as well as the history of its virtual re-creation. Grab your gun, watch the skies, and plan your attack: we're going in.

The history

The 6.5 square kilometers of Wake Island were annexed by the United States in 1899 for use as a cable station; it was subsequently turned into an air and naval base in 1940. The CIA lists it as a "strategic location in the North Pacific Ocean."

By 1941, it had become an incredibly important spot for American forces fighting in World War 2. From Wake Island, they could launch bombing operations to the Marshall Islands then held by the Japanese. Wake was defended by 12 Wildcat fighters and a handful of anti-aircraft guns, and those working on the island were keenly aware that their position could be attacked at any time. On December 8, 1941, that attack arrived.

Japanese Rear Admiral Kajioka Sadamichi was given the job of taking this piece of land from the Americans with three light cruisers, two destroyers, and 450 men. After early bombing, 7 of the 12 Wildcats were destroyed before they even took off. The rest of the aircraft were destroyed while fighting above the island. Still, the American soldiers successfully defended the island.

"The defenders of Wake Island comprised a bastard-type unit, equipped with obsolete hand-me-down weapons of World War I vintage," Arthur R. Poindexter wrote in Leatherneck magazine. "It was only three days after the calamity at Pearl Harbor, which marked the beginning of US participation in World War II, that the American armed forces scored this victory." In a time of negative news reports, the story of Wake Island became a popular way to raise American morale.

But on December 23, the island was finally taken from US forces after the Japanese regrouped. Fifty-two soldiers and 70 civilians died on the American side, while Japanese losses were estimated at between 700 and 1,000 soldiers. The majority of the American survivors were sent to POW camps in Asia, though some contractors were kept on the island to build the Japanese fortifications.

On September 4, 1945, Japanese forces surrendered the island to American forces after a series of successful air raids—one of which was flown by future US President George H.W. Bush—but the remaining 99 American contractors captured in 1941 had already been executed.

The game

I spoke with Lars Gustavsson, the producer of Battlefield 1942 and the Lead Designer of Multiplayer on Battlefield 3, about what it was like choosing locations for 1942.

"The main criteria were that it had to be a well-known battleground since our game sold on the fact that you got to revisit these locations," he explained. "The second criteria was that the battleground, and the events that played out there, had to have something special that we could turn into good gameplay."

The team had hoped to use satellite data to provide a perfect reproduction of Wake Island in the game, but they soon realized that the actual island was much too big. They decided to scale down the island for the game while keeping the terrain's features and overall shape intact. When creating the maps, the team decided that the gameplay should shape the levels. Fun came before realism.

The island's natural design made it ideal for the sort of multiplayer game DICE was trying to create. "Due to its bent shape, it also provides a long and narrow battlefield that builds up a clear frontline and causes forces to clash time after time while keeping a good overview of the battle," Gustavsson said.

"The fact that the inviting lagoon is there for full frontal assaults and cross lagoon sneak attacks by boat or even swimming, ensures that there's always an alternate route when you're cornered at one end of the island," he continued. There's no easy way to win, no "silver bullet" for players.

"This, in combination with planes and naval units, made this island the perfect fit for our battlefield gameplay to the point that we chose Wake Island to be the demo level and ambassador for the game when we released it back in 2002."

Research for the locations came from frequent trips to the library, as well as looking at records and information online. Without a budget to physically scout locations, the team was forced to look at secondary sources to boil each location down to the details that would add most to the gameplay.

"Since our engine couldn't paint the environments to the level of detail that we can deliver today, it was even more important to know what features of Wake Island that we wanted to spend our resources on," Gustavsson told Ars. "I'm still extremely pleased with the end result."

"The Battlefield signature is the fact that we provide the tools and the players create the drama," he continued. "In this case we did extensive research on what forces participated and tried to recreate a battle that stayed as true as possible to the real life counterpart, based on our rather limited resources."

While the situations, locations, and rough balance of forces on both sides begin in reality, once play begins, the battle could unfold in any number of ways. Some of my favorite memories of Wake Island consist of parachuting onto the Japanese destroyers and sabotaging the planes before they could take off, or simple spawn camping. Good times.

"Since we cannot tell the players how to play, there are rounds where events play out in a way that is quite close to how it happened in real life, and other rounds where the chosen strategy gives a totally different battle," Gustavsson said. "Once the game is out, it's in the hands of the players."