Video games are no stranger to conflict. From Call of Duty and Battlefield to Age of Empires and Red Alert, the medium has shown us the horrors of war from various perspectives. Metal Gear Solid tells us that war has changed. Fallout argues that war never changes, yet in almost all cases the overall objective is to destroy the enemy. This War of Mine from 11 Bit Studios takes a refreshingly different approach as it examines conflict from the civilians’ point of view. The objective isn’t to destroy – it’s to survive.
The freshness of the story extends to the gameplay, so much so that it is hard to place This War of Mine into any existing genre. It’s a 2D game in which you control a party of different survivors. You start off in a dilapidated house, controlling three characters who are stuck a besieged city during a bitter civil war. The player’s job is to ensure at least one character survives until the end of the conflict.
In terms of gameplay, this title is split into two sections, day and night. During the day, This War of Mine almost plays like a dark version of The Sims. Characters can be affected by a variety of ailments such as hunger, sickness and depression. Players must use various items and furniture to keep these ailments in check to ensure that every character survives. There’s a nice variety of stuff to build and craft but it can be a little overwhelming for first time players. It would have been nice if the developers had included a tech tree or crafting guide to give players a little bit more information to help them with their decisions.
It’s a game of resource management as players struggle to make the right decisions to keep everyone alive. Do you use your small pile of wood to improve your defenses, keeping thieves and vicious gangs at bay, or do you use it as fuel so you can cook a meal? Do you use up precious medicine on a character who is slightly sick, or do you take the risk and save the medicine for a more serious emergency? These are the type of decisions that players are constantly forced to make as they juggle the needs of their characters against their meager resources.
It is very unlikely that you’ll be able to build everything in one playthrough, meaning that you’ll need to carefully manage your materials right up until the very end. This helps keep the game challenging and interesting. This War of Mine has a very well balanced difficulty curve with the game slowly adding more and more challenges. What’s even better is that almost every event in the game is driven by the players choices. If one of your characters die, it’s your fault, not the games. The lack of different save files makes every decision permanent. If you get someone killed you have two choices, carry on without them or start all over again.
The characters themselves are well designed. Each has their own unique trait which sets them apart from the rest. Bruno for example used to be a professional chef so he’s able to cook meals very efficiently, using less fuel and water. Lisa on the other hand is very persuasive and is the best character for cutting deals with the various traders you meet. There’s no currency in This War of Mine; for every resource that you want, you’ll have to give up some different resources in exchange. The only way to get items for free is to scavenge.
Scavenging takes place during the night and constitutes the second part of the game. Players pick one of the characters and can send him/her to various locations around the city in the hope of picking up food, parts, weapons or materials. You can only visit one location per night so players must be sure to choose carefully. It’s at this point that This War of Mine changes from a resource management sim to an action game. This could have been the downfall of the title but thankfully night sections compliment the day sections extremely well. The change in pace and atmosphere ensures that This War of Mine never gets overly repetitive.
Of course, it helps that the night sections themselves are also well designed. Sticking with its 2D perspective, player’s move their character trough a small environment, searching through piles of rubble for anything that might be useful. Scavenging by itself would get boring fast so 11 Bit Studios has included a variety of other options for players to choose from. As you explore each locations, your likely to bump into other civilians and you can choose to trade, steal, or kill. Of course, many NPCs will try and kill you too, so you’ll have to be very careful. During my play through of the game, most of my character deaths came from wounds sustained while scavenging. Some NPCs will shoot you on sight while others will be friendly until you try and steal from them. Some are even merciful as they’ll wound you and then let you go, rather than killing you outright. Before you select which location to scavenge in, the game will tell you a little bit about what you can expect from the NPCs as well as what kind of resources are hidden there.
As with the rest of the game, it’s the variety of the locations that makes the night sections good. There’s a small house in the south of the city with plenty of food and electrical parts, but it’s guarded by the owners’ shotgun-wielding son. The city’s only remaining hospital is packed with medicine which is supposed to be for the patients, not scavengers such as yourself. Is it morally acceptable to steal from a hospital to save one of your dying characters? These moral decisions aren’t just part of the story, they have a direct affect on the gameplay. Your party members probably won’t get too worked up about stealing supplies from a vicious criminal gang, but murdering a rich elderly couple and taking all their possessions could well drive some of your characters to suicide.
This War of Mine is yet another example of an inventive, well designed indie game from a small studio. It might not have a huge amount of content or the best production values, but what it does have is freshness and fun. It’s a title that relies on gameplay and player choice, not cutscenes, to tell an interesting and emotional story. The constant switching between day and night, and the well balanced difficulty curve will keep you hooked in that ‘just one more turn’ mentality. Still, the game isn’t quite varied enough to stay off feeling of repetitiveness forever and it could be improved by some more content in the end game. There are also some slight control problems when you can only issue orders with a mouse, especially during combat. Allowing the players to use the arrow keys or other keyboard commands could have solved this small problem.
Nevertheless, This War of Mine is a fantastic experience and 11 Bit Studios must be praised for their creativity and innovation. I highly recommend that you try out this tile for yourself and leave your own opinions in the comments and user rating sections below.
This War of Mine
Pros
- Varied Gameplay
- Innovative Premise
- Challenging
Cons
- Lacks Endgame Content
- Confusing At The Beginning
[…] To read our original review of This War Of Mine on PC, click here. […]