This War of Mine

While most war focused games often put players in the shoes of soldiers, This War of Mine allows players to experience the life of an everyday person in the middle of a war torn world. Fans of games like Distrust, Papers Please, and 11 bit studio’s other game, Frostpunk, will undoubtedly love This War of Mine’s difficult choice making and grim, down-to-earth presentation in a ravaged world of war.

War is Survival

The game is, at its heart, a survival and resource management game that blends the best of both genres to create an emotionally mature, genuinely difficult game that blows bigger budget games out of the water.

This War of Mine has the unique premise of managing a group of civilians rather than a superhero soldier protagonist. It’s up to the player to make difficult choices to ensure that their group of survivors makes it to the end. While the game isn’t the lengthiest, it does encourage repeat playthroughs as you’ll quickly find that your runs are full of problems and loss of life.

As you make your way through the unnamed city, you’ll need to manage a series of resources to keep your survivors well-fed and healthy. Of course, there’s also plenty of enemies waiting to take you down, so players can expect a lot of careful tip-toeing as they explore dilapidated buildings in search of loot.

To make things more interesting, the game isn’t simply about keeping bars full. The way you choose to keep your survivors alive also plays a big role. If players choose more desperate methods of survival, their overall moral will start to decline. Slip too far and players will find that their characters might fall into a depression, with arguments arising amidst your ranks, and even the simplest of tasks becoming difficult to complete.

Serious yet Satisfying

The game doesn’t waste it's incredibly serious and gripping setting. The aforementioned depression mechanic is mixed in with many other smaller ones to create a very compelling experience. Characters react realistically despite their basic art style, and original stories begin to play out based solely on your own decisions, or mistakes.

War Never Changes

There’s definitely a lot of replayability when it comes to This War of Mine. Unfortunately, there is a limit on how much ‘new’ content can arise in new playthroughs. While this superficially means that replays aren’t original every single time, the many possibilities that can arise make each run feel genuinely exciting and fresh. Even basic changes like freak weather patterns and starting situations make playthroughs feel like unique experiences.

Slight changes in results, characters and environmental factors mean that no playthrough is genuinely the same. It’s a genuinely impressive feat that gives the game maximum bang for your buck, especially for an indie game with a lower price tag than triple A games.

PROS

• Difficult moral and ethical decisions
• Gritty, realistic and emotional subject matter
• Interesting and realistic explorations of morality

CONS

• Graphics are quite simplistic
• Very difficult at times