Having enjoyed my Frostpunk playthrough earlier this year, I decided to dive into this studio’s previous game since, much like Frostpunk, I was really attracted to the concept and aesthetics. And I am now fully convinced 11 bit has effectively tapped into a very particular, very niche type of experience that granted, isn’t for everyone, but that will resonate on another level with the type of people these games are intended for.
Right off the bat, the atmosphere in This War of Mine had me hooked. It’s dark, depressing and cold with stylish, haunting hand drawn visuals. The mood it paints is grim yet visibly successful at bewitching you and fully capturing your attention. From then on, it’s a constant ordeal to keep your everyday survivors alive amidst a gruelling civil war. The fact that you play as everyday civilians really does paint your experience in a whole different way: every decision matters, every negative consequence is deeply felt, every achievement celebrated.
The daily struggle for survival throughout the war period is serviced by TWoM’s compelling gameplay loop and survival mechanics existing in two separate cycles: every day, you tend to the needs of your community, improvement/maintenance of your base, trading necessities and/or interactions with other survivor groups; every night (ideally at least), you send out a party member with very limited inventory slots to scavenge or trade at dangerous and uncertain places in war-torn Pogoren. The outcome of this is never the same, but chances are they’ll be coming back with very useful resources that you can then put to good use. However, much like actual war-torn places, there’s also the very tangible chance they won’t come back at all. This is where TWoM truly excels, this sense of tension bordering on fear that it instils in the player, that notion that every time they send out their best scavenger may be the last time they see them.
Scavenging isn’t the only way you can lose someone, and things like starvation, illness and injury are also real challenges. Permadeath in this game is shattering, and it actually elicits a moment of pause when you’re just sitting there, thinking about what just happened and what that means for you and your characters. It’s a thought-provoking experience, depressing in a meaningful way, that on a broader, more serious level tries to evoke introspection about the horrors of war. However, this is also intrinsically tied to an area of the game in which I have the most mixed feelings, and that is combat. Engagement controls can be quite infuriating, to the point of costing your characters their lives. Listening to the devs talk about this game, I’m convinced that such was an intentional design choice that I fully understand (it is, after all, meant to replicate the chaos and despair a regular person would feel in these scenarios). But damn, combat is wonky to say the least, and mechanically speaking far from enjoyable. The upside to this, of course, is that physical confrontation is strongly discouraged and avoidance strongly favoured, once again much like you’d see in real life. And while, once again, I definitely stand behind this design philosophy, I also wish that (at least on console) the stealth mechanics came with a tad more polish in order to make this playing style more satisfying.
Other issues are present. The game is very punishing in your scavenging limitations. You’re only allowed to go to one place per night, and though I see why they did it this way, I think a good compromise would’ve been either to allow (admittedly more dangerous) daily scavenges, or to allow a second place at night if the first place had been scavenged in a very short amount of time. Conversely, there’s genuine potential for this game to feel repetitive, because variations aside, your experience is essentially the same from start to finish - though I suppose this actually plays well with the theme at hand. These do impact your overall level of enjoyment, but to be honest, they didn’t bother me much in the big scheme. Bottom line is that This War of Mine stays with you after you play it. It is now clear to me that 11 bit does a phenomenal job of marrying the weight of beautifully somber, charged aesthetics with not only rewarding resource management design but also the tension that comes with good survival mechanics. And though I enjoyed this game slightly more than I did its successor, you can easily spot the refinement and technical evolution from TWoM to Frostpunk. I hope this studio maintains this type of vibe and direction, because I honestly don’t see anyone else out there doing it with such talent and intention. 8/10
