by Shane O'Hare PAX Prime 2014: My Hands On With ‘This War Of Mine’, The Most Important Game Of Our Generation

This War of Mine is quite possibly the most important game of our generation. It touches on a subject that hasn’t been touched before in gaming. “In War, not everyone is a soldier”.

http://vimeo.com/88892328f

I got to the 11 Bit Studios booth shortly before my meeting with the head writer, Pawel Miechowski. Another 11 Bit Studios employee got me set up with the game and told me Pawel would come over and meet with me. I started up the demo and was greeted with a randomly generated start. The game is a side scrolling, point and click style pseudo-adventure game. You can choose a survivor character and move them around the map. Double clicking will make you character run, but that will create a bubble of sound around them that enemies will react to. There are points of interaction around the map that you, well, interact with: Wardrobes, doors, cabinets, piles of rubble, various types of furniture, and a workbench.

I was greeted with three survivors, each with their own stats. One was an expert salvager, one was a “good cook”, and another was handy. Of course, they each also had negative attributes assigned to themselves. One of them was slightly sick, while everyone else was tired and hungry. When left alone, the characters would talk with each other about the trials and tribulations of the war. I quickly got the three survivors starting on bettering our house. Clearing rubble, opening doors and cabinets and building some furniture. The day is spent working on your shelter, while the night is spent scavenging. When the clock ran out, it was time to prep my refugees for the night.

I was presented with the night time menu. Each character had to be assigned a job. The three options I had right off the bat where “Sleep. Guard. Salvage.”. I assigned one to each, and then went to the salvage map. Here I could choose between locations that I could scour for materials. I went out to a run down building and proceeded to go from room to room. This is where the atmosphere really shines through. The building was foreboding, and frankly kind of scary. Graffiti adorning the wall outside was a bit…bothersome.

Going from room to room, slowly I was so engrossed with what I was doing. The roar of the convention center seemed to vanish as I was focused on getting supplies for my shelter. As I crept through another room, a red circle appeared on the screen. I automatically assumed it was an enemy, and the circle represented noise coming from the upper floors. This is where I really took note of how the player saw things. Everything outside of the players view was blurred and darkened. As I went up to a door to look through the keyhole, a cone of clear vision spread across the room. Walking up to ledges and holes in the ground, a small beam of the players vision shot down through to what was below. As I got to the last room, the noise ultimately turned out to be a small animal, obviously trying to survive like we were. I found a letter in a dresser from a distraught husband, lamenting about his wife’s passing. He noted that they buried the handgun she’d used to kill herself in the back yard. Backtracking through the house, a new item of interest appeared on the ground. The broken gun frame. Something I could fix with gun parts, if I had enough.

Back at the main shelter I dropped off the goods I found, and recanted the nights goings on with the others. One of my survivors had gotten sicker, and another extremely tired. Things were starting to get a bit overwhelming. I crafted a bed with the little wood I had, and found some herbal medicine for my sick character. The day went moreso the same as the first day, and as the night approached I didn’t realized in depth this game was going to get.

Night came and I picked the character who had the least afflictions and sent him to a house. Upon getting to the house I immediately saw that it was occupied. I slowly crept around the inhabitants. Stealing the little supplies they had. I started to feel bad about it, which I guess was an intended effect. I made my way back up from the basement to the main level, and hid as the man of the house walked by, and this is where things got heated. He noticed that the front door was open, and started a thorough search of the home. My hiding space was soon discovered and a fist fight broke out. I defended myself, but had to kill the man. The fight alerted the wife, and she came at me with a knife. Again, I had to defend myself. Immediately I wasn’t that upset with the situation, now I could explore the house freely but my character was fairly hurt. Upon getting back to the shelter my actions at the house became apparent.

Upon entering the shelter, my character went on a tirade about how bleak the entire situation was and started to break down about having to murder some people. He now had the “Sad” and “Depressed” status affliction, and the other characters in the home talked about how bad everything had become. It was at this time Pawel came over to see if I was ready for my interview but looking at my face he said “You looked pretty engrossed, I will let you play some more. Come find me when you are ready.”

I played for a few more days and nights. It felt like I was making one step toward progress, and two steps back to a bleak reality. My characters were starving, hurting and falling apart.

Interview

Then back up with Pawel and started asking him my questions.

He told me that the idea of the game came from an article called “One Year In Hell”. The article recounted the tale of a man surviving the Bosnia war from the 90’s. It really showed how in war, it’s not just soldiers on two sides fighting. The people that were just living a normal life up until that point were the biggest victims. After reading the article, him and his team at 11 Bit did a lot of research on the authenticity of the piece.

They wanted to make a game that was very mature, and that focused on serious mature themes. The horrors of wars was an obvious choice. They wanted the game to be fun but still stay grounded in reality. They made the conscious decision not to have the soldiers be from any specific army, making the combatants as ambiguous as possible.

Each character that you can play as will be extremely different from each other. When I asked him how things like murders will affect different people he said “Each character is different. Not only from their abilities, but how they react emotionally. Our AI system is EXTREMELY advanced, and probably one of the most unique features from our game. When someone has to commit and act they don’t like, they will react differently than the next. Things like books, or building a radio from parts is a great way to bring their morale up.” He went on to say that the game has it’s own language. How everything comes together, be it how characters interact with each other or the environment. It has it’s own voice.

The war will eventually end in the game, it’s not an endless survival game. Pawel said “But you won’t know when it will end. Because in the real thing, people ACTUALLY surviving have to survive under the idea that the war will never end. So we wont tell you when it will end, and it will change each time, but it will eventually.”

Final Thoughts

The little I got to play of this game sold me. I sat at the 11 Bit Studios booth for what felt like only a few minutes, but turned out to be almost an hour. Talking with Pawel, I learned how passionate the guys at 11 Bit Studios are about this title. Coming from Poland, a country that has been plagued with war for centuries, they wanted to tell the Western world a story that is rarely told. It touches on the subject of war and doesn’t pull any punches. When playing, and my characters were revolted by the actions they had taken, I was taken aback. Usually in games, when you do something you aren’t “supposed” to do, you either have to reset or get a slap on the wrist. At the most you are penalized points. In This War of Mine, your characters are DEEPLY affected by it and it will carry on with them for a while.

This game is on point to become one of the most important titles of this generation. It grabs you by the collar and forces you to see the side of war that is rarely mentioned.

This War of Mine is slated to be released by end of year and will be available on PC, OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android.