If Call of Duty or Battlefield is what happens on the frontlines, then This War of Mine is a bleak look at the side effects of being that hero. All too often in video games are we thrown to the front lines of some war and asked to be the hero, the save the day. Developer 11 bit studios asks something different of you — to merely survive.
You’re thrown into This War of Mine with very little explanation. You know there’s a war going on around you, but you don’t know why. All you know is that you can’t leave. So the only choice you have, really, is to survive, by any means possible. Of course, should things get too grim, your characters will opt to off themselves or just leave. That’s just one of the possibilities though; I promise you This War of Mine does get darker.
The game starts with you in control of three civilians living in a rundown building. How they came together is a bit of a mystery, but all that’s important now is how they can work together to survive. Each character has a special skill, whether it be bartering, cooking, or “running fast.” With little food and medicine, you must scavenge for supplies and basically build this rundown building into a shelter capable of keeping your group alive.
This War of Mine plays as two very different games mixed into one. Gameplay is divided into two cycles: day and night. During the day, This War of Mine plays like The Sims; you use the supplies you’ve scavenged for to build things like a bed, a radio, a rainwater collector, simple heater, and other things that help make this hideout a home. You can also build things that’ll help keep you safe at night, like a metal workshop that lets you craft knives and even repair firearms.
At night, you are safe from the snipers, and free to scavenge nearby areas for supplies. At this point, the game becomes less simulation and more of a stealth-action game. Before heading out into the night, you must first assign your characters tasks — sleep, guard, or scavenge (only one character can scavenge at night, and you can only scavenge one place per night — so it’s imperative that you choose your target wisely). Certain locations post bigger threats than others, or have other setbacks like locked/boarded up doors or mounds of debris that must be cleared before you can progress. Also, certain locations wield different types of supplies. Some areas might have lots of food while others have lots of medicine. All of these different factors must be assessed when preparing to scavenge.
It’s equally important which character you choose to scavenge with. For example, some characters excel in running fast, which is great for escaping from danger. Others are able to hold more supplies. The amount of inventory space for a character is hugely important since you sometimes have to take tools with you on a raid. If you only have 10 slots available and two or three of those slots are taken with things like a knife or lockpick, it doesn’t leave much room for scavenged supplies.
Night gameplay is a little more interactive, with you roaming rundown houses, schools, apartment buildings, etc. in search of supplies. Sometimes these buildings will be empty, other times they’ll be inhabited with other survivors. How these survivors react to you varies. Some will be frightened, allowing you to take what you want. Others will shoot on sight. Some will only shoot if you take from them, leaving you little option but to either steal and fight or just leave, wasting an entire night. Though combat is an option, your lack of weapons early on will typically result in death. For that reason, I found it best to sneak around, avoiding people whenever possible. I learned the hard way through my first two playthroughs of how dangerous other survivors can be. Of course, I’d probably defend myself too if a scavenger came trying to steal my supplies.
Unfortunately, This War of Mine is a bit contradictory. It wants you to survive, but punishes you for doing so. If you don’t scavenge, you don’t find supplies. If you do scavenge, you’ll eventually get to the point where you have to steal from other people. When you do that, your group gets mad at you and basically makes you feel like the worst person on Earth. There’s no winning, which I suppose is the point. This War of Mine makes you do bad things to survive. While the option to trade is available during the day, you’re limited in what you can do at night. You either scavenge empty homes, steal from other survivors, or do nothing. There’s no middle-ground should you encounter another group, and that lack of option is frustrating since I wanted to be a good person, but have mouths to feed.
This War of Mine is terribly unforgiving, but then again, so is war. There’s no hand-holding in this game. You do what you have to in order to survive. And even when you do that, you’re barely making it by. Forget being happy. Even when you bring in a good haul at night, something bad usually happens — like someone loots your place and steals your survive. For the entire game, you’re at the mercy of randomness. This unpredictable nature, while I suppose accurate to real life, is somewhat frustrating as the difficulty of your gameplay will vary greatly depending on how plentiful the surrounding areas are.
Pacing is probably This War of Mine’s biggest problem — particularly during the day when things are slower. There’s just too much repetition and downtime during the day. Whereas nighttime looting kept me on my toes, the daytime gameplay bored me. Once I completed my chores and did everything I could in the day, there was nothing left for me to do. I didn’t want to skip to night because I wanted my scavenger to sleep, so that another survivor could use the bed at night. Some sort of option that allows me to control the speed of time, like The Sims, would easily fix this.
I think more than anything, This War of Mine does a great job of putting you in the moment. It really makes you feel like a casualty of war. Forget happiness, there’s very little to celebrate in this game. Even accomplishments like building your first bed are tempered with the feeling of that tomorrow everything you’ve worked for could be gone. There’s a constant dread looming overhead when playing. There were times when I actually had to stop playing because of how horrible this game was making me feel.
Another shining spot with this game is its music and visuals. The dynamic soundtrack heightens the intensity or somberness of each moment, while the visuals — a stylized sketch with minimal use of color (there are lots of dull grays used) — do a great job of establishing a bleak setting. I’ve never been as immersed in an point-and-click, 2D-sidescroller as I was with This War of Mine.
Despite the repetition that may occur at times throughout the game, This War of Mine offers a fantastically unique view on war — something that is all-too-often glorified in video games. I don’t think you’ll ever find happiness while playing this game, just satisfaction that you’ve managed to survive another day, and with that a little more depression when you realize things probably won’t get better. The hope is there, until it isn’t anymore. And that’s the feeling I had playing This War of Mine.
