This game is rated ESRB: Everyone.
Soldiers of Fortune, known as Chaos Engine in European markets, is a run-and-gun overhead shooter developed by The Bitmap Brothers and released in 1993. The game spans sixteen levels divided into four groups of four, set across open environments featuring maps with rivers, bridges, and varied terrain. Players choose from six distinct characters, each carrying different attributes and starting costs, allowing for some strategic flexibility in team composition. The visual style leans heavily on a metallic, blue-toned aesthetic consistent with the studio's design sensibility. Originally released on platforms including the Amiga, Atari ST/STE, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, and DOS, the game later reached additional systems including the Super Nintendo, Game Boy Advance, and various desktop platforms. The core experience centers on navigating hostile levels and eliminating enemies from a top-down perspective.
The setting is a steampunk Victorian era England. A time traveller on a reconnaissance mission from the distant future became stranded in the England of the late 1800s, and his technology came into the hands of the Royal Society, led by Baron Fortesque (based upon Charles Babbage), a grand inventor. Fortesque then retro engineered many of the futuristic contraptions, creating an entirely different, alternate timeline. Baron Fortesque then succeeded in his greatest creation yet: the Chaos Engine, which was able to experiment with matter and the very nature of space and time. Unfortunately for the rest of the proud kingdom, the Engine then proceeded to become sentient, captured and assimilated its creator, and began to change the countryside for the worse. Vile monsters and destructive automata appeared everywhere, and even prehistoric beasts were resurrected. Telegram wires connecting the British Isles to the European mainland are cut, and any ship attempting to enter a British port is attacked. The British Royal Family, members of Parliament and a large number of refugees manage to escape across the sea, bringing with them many tales of horror. The British Empire is left in tatters, and the world in economic and political chaos. That lures a number of mercenaries on a potentially-rewarding quest to infiltrate the quarantined Britain, find the root of the problem and swiftly bring a full stop to it.
