War MMO players battle against impossible odds for 48 real hours, build a religion around a corpse pile, then crash the server

30.10.2023 - 20:47 / pcgamer.com

Foxhole is a sandbox-style war MMO and, while it officially released last year, it's been available in early access since 2017. Its schtick is one persistent and gigantic war game where thousands of players simultaneously battle for one of two factions, both seeking domination over a gigantic map, but with the twist that, as in a real conflict, the logistics, resource and supply side of the armies is just as important, if not more so, than the soldiers firing guns and piloting vehicles. 

PCG's own Morgan Park will tell you that Foxhole is an RPG «in the literal roleplaying sense, not in the stat grinding sense» and that «like the best social games, great stories happen as a matter of course.» This past weekend saw one such story: a 48-hour long battle between an isolated island called Silver, cut-off from all logistics support and supplies, facing down an overwhelming and endless invasion force.

What happened next was so extreme and remarkable, even by MMO standards, it has instantly birthed two new rallying cries for players of the game: «praise the pile», referring to a mass of corpses that both became essential and revered, and the more self-explanatory «Silver stands!»

To set the stage: Foxhole's two factions are called the Colonials and the Wardens, and in this case the Colonials held Silver island, part of a larger area called The Oarbreakers Isles. The Wardens held the territory around Silver island, including four much larger islands, and controlled the waters to boot. This meant that not only were the Colonials on Silver island screwed, but double-screwed: They were facing far superior numbers from an army that could constantly resupply itself, while being cut off from their own supply lines and limited to whatever gear was on the island. No more respawns, no medical equipment to save wounded soldiers, no extra ammo.

The attacking Wardens had everything and more, but Silver island's layout has a silver lining. The only access point from the water is a 50-metre long stretch of beach, which allowed the defenders to set up a choke point for any incoming attackers. The defending Colonials had two other factors working in their favour, the first being robust medical triage: four field hospitals, which can turn six critically wounded soldiers into six «shirts», Foxhole's version of respawn tickets. The second was the ability to create sandbags and barbed wire.

As subsequently recorded by Foxhole players including xRudyTudyx on TikTok and the Press Corps Foxhole Desk, the Warden attack began with a withering hail of blind fire (Foxhole has fog of war, so the defenders were firing into darkness), and troops that landed on the beach quickly ran into «the sandcastle». This was a winding, interconnected