Blitzkrieg 3 [official site] has got a big ol’ update with a new PvP mode. It’s something called Active Defense, which from my understanding of WWII front line defense – most of which has been gleaned from Nick Frost in Spaced – means the developers at Nival are angling for slightly more realistic combat.

Essentially this means it’s in real-time. Up until this point, Blitzkrieg 3’s multiplayer mode was “asynchronous,” meaning the defending team in its front line were offline players whose forces were controlled by AI. Which is slightly strange. It’s only now that they’ve introduced real-time PvP between attacking and defending players.

More specifically, after this update the in-game matchmaker will look for players online first before filling in the defending garrison with AI.

“While in a real war sides are never put in symmetrical conditions, the PvP modes in games invariably present abstract duels in which opponents fight in equal conditions,” said Nival CEO Sergey Orlovskiy. “The only wide-known exception to this so far has been CounterStrike and we thought that implementing this tactical scheme as the basis for online battles not in a shooter but in a strategy genre might be that fresh idea that will breath new life in to the RTS genre.”

You can check out our preview of the multiplayer in its original form for an idea of how things once were right here.

Blitzkrieg 3 is currently on Steam Early Access.