[2] An American expedition to Russia during World War I discovers an extraterrestrial mineral, Siberite, that can catalyze cold fusion and fuel an alien artifact they name EON.

Then in the new millennium vast deposits of the mineral are found in Siberia, and Americans are able to extract enough of it for small-scale time-travel.

There it will mine the Siberite and transport it over the Bering Land Bridge to Alaska, into what will one day be in American hands.

A communist Russia fumes, turning to outrage when their scientists find traces of American settlement and Alaskite, the source of U.S. power, in remote Siberia.

An expedition is sent through the alien artifact, which the Russians name TAWAR, to repel the American thieves and preserve what is rightfully theirs.

Original War is an RTS: the player constructs a base, finds resources, builds vehicles, and destroys the enemy.

The local apemen can be trained to do simple tasks, and with the right research it is possible to use remote control and AIs, but all are generally worse in combat than humans.

Critical damage causes humans and apemen to collapse, and vehicles and buildings to eject their occupants and catch fire.

[3] Each human or apeman unit has its own name and portrait, speed, firepower and defense scores, and experience levels in each of the game's four classes.

The XP gained increases further into the game, and is affected by the player's success in completing the various demands (generally sidequests) in each mission.

[4] Later in June, work began on the first patch v1.03, which primarily added basic Mod support to Original War.

In 2007, starting with version 1.09 however, the game features a working master server hosted by Original War Support, and an IRC based chat system that allows people to set up or join multiplayer matches from an ingame menu.

In July 2011, the community website Original-war.net released a working version of a multiplayer ranking system that records the outcomes of matches and displays them online.

Reviewer Aleksi Stenberg wrote that the plot and the unusual gameplay made the game more interesting than a dozen Red Alerts.