Enigma: Rising Tide - The Story

The Story

The main story of Enigma: Rising Tide is centered on the US and Germany at first, and the escalating tensions between these two. After a number of conflicts between destroyer groups in the Caribbean, the two powers come to the brink of war with the sinking of the convoy ship SS Samuel Wren off of Ireland in mid-1937. It was claimed that the ship was sunk without warning by a German U-boat, which had surfaced to search the ship for illegal arms. However, after playing the LFN campaign, it is obvious that an LFN submarine was the culprit in this crime- the British aim to cause a war between the US and Germany in order to assist their ultimate goal of regaining Britain. Not long after this incident, the Prince Edwards task force is attacked just south of England as it attempts to head for the Falklands to engage the LFN warships there (the Falklands are now a German territory). In the engagement, the Prince Edward is sunk and HMS Hood escapes with moderate damage.

After the attack by the Hood, a task force with the Kaiser Wilhelm as its flagship sets out to pursue the escaping British, but it is intercepted by a large American destroyer force which delays the Germans long enough for the Hood to escape. However, intelligence later reveals that the Hood task force was engaged by the Americans, and that it did not escape unscathed. Chapter 1 of Enigma ends with a cutscene that reveals the Americans have launched a large-scale attack on the German fleet at Scapa Flow, effectively neutralizing the battleships stationed there. Afterwards, there is a short account of Chancellor von Richthofen's visit to the devastated site, which leaves no doubt that this is the alternate form of Pearl Harbor. It is this that seems to effectively paint the Americans as evil, as Richthofen's speech to the masses is eerily similar to that of Roosevelt's speech just after the attack on Pearl Harbor in real life. Also in this scene, Richthofen declares the age of the battleship is over, and that Germany shall build aircraft carriers and thousands of planes with which they shall rule the skies. His part of the epilogue closes with his orders to convert the Bismarck and Tirpitz, still being outfitted at Kiel, to be converted to carry planes. The epilogue ends with some photos of the Bismarck under construction, near completion, and then after conversion to a brand-new class of warship, a battlecarrier. In the final photo, she has a large flight deck across the aft section of the ship, but still bears her two forward dual 14.96" turrets.