Creating a commemorative first world war game is bold, given the traditionally blunt approach to warfare that video games have, but boldness is to be expected of Wallace and Gromit creators Aardman Animations. The mission of 11-11: Memories Retold, released before the centenary of Armistice Day, is to provide insight into the war, particularly for younger generations.

Aardman Animations’ first full-length game takes an impressionistic approach, with its visuals – which employ a “living painting” effect inspired by the likes of Turner and Monet – seeming to boil and flow. It is a clever ploy, and is in keeping with the game’s contemplative tone. The game avoids explicit bloodshed, but still communicates the grim nature of trench life. It also heightens your attention to the story, which has a fable-like quality, as if vividly but distantly remembered.

The game follows two characters on opposing sides of the war: Canadian Harry and German Kurt. Neither is at war when the story starts in November 1916: Harry is working in a Toronto photography shop and Kurt in a zeppelin factory. But Harry is recruited by the somewhat narcissistic Major Barrett to take photographs at the front. Meanwhile, Kurt, who is tormented by the fear that his son Max may have been killed at the front, enlists in order to find him. Neither protagonist wields a gun, uniquely for a first world war game. Harry is a photographer, Kurt an engineer.

Their stories unfold, month by month – and eventually become entwined. The game takes in various locations, most notably Vimy and Passchendaele. It is by no means an action game. Harry takes photos, Kurt fixes radios and eavesdrops on the enemy from spy tunnels dug beneath trenches. Sometimes they work together in occasionally clunky, laborious puzzles. There’s a lot of walking around, taking in the atmosphere and, often, trying to figure out what to do next; there are no maps or icons urging you towards an objective.

Talking to people and making conversational choices influences the story and the ending, and you must choose what Kurt writes in his frequent letters to his wife and daughter at home. As the pair edge closer to the fighting, the gameplay escalates; you might, for example, have to duck and dive to avoid snipers or time runs according to when machine-gunners are reloading, and there are some stealth sequences. What you do is tightly constrained by the story, the real point of the game, which makes a good fist of capturing the essence of what it must have been like to fight in the war from two novel, non-combatant perspectives.

The game, which comes in at roughly six hours, illuminates the subject of the first world war with sensitivity and poignancy while covering an awful lot of ground. It also offers a good snapshot of prevailing sensibilities, some of which may shock younger players. While musing on the futility and psychological effect of war and how loss can affect a person, it manages to avoid becoming too heavy or overbearing – which is quite an achievement.

For those who think they don’t know enough about the war, 11-11: Memories Retold paints a picture of the time. Aardman Animations, development partner DigixArt and publisher Bandai Namco have harnessed the power of video games to create a fitting accompaniment to the centenary of Armistice Day.