The Day After: Fight for Promised Land (or, as it's known in the US and on Steam, Cuban Missiles Crisis: The Aftermath) is a 2005 video game developed by G5 Software, published by Strategy First in the USA, Black Bean in Europe, and 1C in Russia, that uses the engine Nival Interactive used to make Blitzkrieg. The game did not change much in its basic formula, but the changes made to reflect the better tank tech, as well as the known battle plans of the time, did change balance around (while still retaining some quirks, most notably the "tank traffic jam" resulting from pathfinding issues).
This game provides examples of:
- Alternate History: The whole premise, as it posits what would've happened had the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into full-out nuclear war. It isn't pretty at all.
- Apocalypse How: Class 1, though Ice Crusade seems to imply that eventually the Southern Hemisphere will start to freeze over until reaching the Equator as well, leading to Class 4 in time.
- Bilingual Bonus: As per tradition, if you do speak Chinese, German, French or Russian, you will understand what's being said. It has to be noted, though, that the Chinese speak with a very "posh" accent, and the French ones have some odd pronounciation in places.
- Endless Winter: Nuclear Winter is very real and very nasty in this world, to the point the Northern Hemisphere and part of the Southern One literally freeze over.
- Expansion Pack: The Ice Crusade, which is set entirely between Mexico and the former USA, and features two mini-campaigns for the US-UK Alliance and the URSS.
- Fog of War: A real obstacle. Artillery can fire "blind" in it, but there's no garauntee it will hit the target.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: The chapter and story mission briefings initially start off presenting the player's side as the wronged one (which, granted, in the case of China and the Franco-German Alliance it is sort of true), and their enemies as ruthless monsters. However, as the game progresses, all factions will start to eventually do extremely questionable things, notably the Franco-German Alliance "freeing space" in in the former French Colonies in West Africa, and the US-UK alliance "seizing human resources in India and Burma". All of this is sort of justified as a matter of survival, as all factions are rushing to the equator to avoid nucler winter freezing them all to death.
- I Am Very British: In a rare non-American example, "UK-coded" units in the US-UK Alliance will always speak in a RP accent, regardless of everything. This means that you can occasionally hear an impeccable RP-speaking soldier go "I used to drive a tractor before the war" as idle chatter.
- Real-Time with Pause: You can pause the game and still give orders to your units and choose how to react. This is essential for some of the larger maps where you must focus on several situations at once.
- Tank Goodness: As it is proper for the time period. The game features a very wide selection of tanks, all of them in service or in production in the Sixties, featuring even models that saw very little use in combat situations, like the "Charioteer" tank.
- Tanks, but No Tanks: Averted. WW2-era tanks will have to stop to fire at a target, while newer tanks, using stabilizers, can fire their cannons on the move.
