Francois Fenelon
100 years ago, on July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after it failed to fully comply with an ultimatum resulting from the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo a month earlier. Thus began the First World War – one of the most large-scale armed conflicts in human history.
This summer, the leadership of European states and public organizations paid tribute to the centennial anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. Some game studios have done this in their own way. One of the standouts is Ubisoft Montpellier, which released a project called Valiant Hearts: The Great War. The game was released on June 25 simultaneously for PSN (PS3/PS4), Xbox Live and Steam. But long before the start of sales, Valiant Hearts attracted the attention of many gaming publications, promising to give players an unforgettable emotional journey through time. Even those far from the BBC gaming industry, having noticed this project at E3 2014, highly appreciated the semantic depth of the story that the game’s plot reveals. In turn, I also couldn’t pass by Valiant Hearts: The Great War, which attracted me with its sensitive attitude to the history of a forgotten war.
If we talk about Valiant Hearts: The Great War, as a game from a famous French studio, it is, first of all, 2.5D platformer in the adventure genre, with classic puzzles, takedowns and simple stealth missions, created on the UbiArt Framework engine, known to players from such iconic projects for Ubisoft as the modern duology about Rayman and the fabulous RPG Child of Light. Development of Valiant Hearts took 3 years, during which time the studio hired special archaeologists and historians to help create a historically accurate game. As a result of their painstaking work, a touching artistic sketch about the First World War was born, small in volume and short in running time (only about 5-7 hours), but positively atmospheric, sincere, capable of bringing real emotional shock and making you take a fresh look at that “forgotten” war.
It should be noted that the name of the game is a reference to the anthem based on the poems of John Arkwright, dedicated to the victims of World War I. The history is divided into 4 chapters, according to the chronology of the most important historical events: from the beginning of 1914 to the middle of 1917. The plot is based on the correspondence of the French soldier Felix Chazal, rumored to be the great-grandfather of one of the game developers, as well as the fate of a real family that was divided by two warring states
The story begins in France 1914. Karl, a German by birth, runs a small farm with his father-in-law Emil, a native Frenchman. He and his wife Marie are raising their son Victor. But their measured, calm life is unexpectedly interrupted by the news of the outbreak of war. Karl is deported to his homeland, and he ends up at the front. After some time, his father-in-law is also mobilized, and he goes to war, leaving his daughter Marie alone with an unharvested harvest and a small child in her arms. Despite the fact that Emil and Karl will find themselves on opposite sides of the front line, both will hope to the last that they will be able to find out about each other’s fate. They are all confident that very soon the unrest will subside and their lives will return to their usual rhythm..
“Even cowards can start a war, but it’s up to the brave to fight its dangers.”.
Tacitus
During the war, Emil https://gamesnotongamstop.co.uk/roulette/ will meet many good people who will become his true friends. He will help the lonely American Freddie, who was deprived of his beloved by the war. Driven by revenge, he arrives at the front along with the Canadians to personally take revenge on the main villain – Baron von Dorff, whom he will pursue throughout the game. It is known for certain that some Americans were indeed against the initial US refusal to participate in the First World War, so they joined the French Foreign Legion, the British or Canadian armies. A group of American pilots then formed the Lafayette squadron, which became part of the French air force and one of the strongest military units on the Western Front.
Another brave heart will be Anna, a young medical girl from Belgium, who rushed to the front on the very first day of the declaration of war, because she could no longer think about the wounded who needed her help. Throughout the game, without firing a single shot, she will save crowds of wounded. Her father, a scientist, like many of his colleagues in those days, will be taken prisoner by the Germans, and our team will do everything possible to free him.
A special place in this friendly company will be occupied by a dog named Walt, whom Emil will meet while in captivity. During the First World War, dogs were often used as messengers. In capsules strapped to their bodies, they delivered important documents to the front line. Dogs were also used to lay telegraph wires. For the heroes of Valiant Hearts, Walt will become not just a comrade, but also a loyal ally who will more than once save them from imminent death, find hidden objects and help in solving various kinds of puzzles.
The five of our heroes will carry their friendship through all the hardships and suffering, fighting shoulder to shoulder, but the merciless war will each time decide their destinies in its own way, bringing them together and separating them as it pleases.
“War is first the hope that it will be good for us; then – the expectation that they will get worse; then – satisfaction that they are no better off than us; and finally – an unexpected discovery that it’s bad for us and for them.”.
Karl Kraus
The game encourages the player’s curiosity – here you need to find special Items, most often hidden in hard-to-reach places. After you pick up a hidden artifact, brief information about the find will appear in a special menu, which will connect what is happening in the game with the realities of military everyday life of that era. The developers managed to skillfully combine game-style sketches of items to be picked up and real photographs taken during the war. If the item is not found, then you will not know information about it. To tell the truth, this is an interesting activity, since each new find provides useful historical information, and you, without knowing it, will begin to explore locations in detail in search of hiding places, even if you are not a perfectionist by nature and rarely pursue the goal of completing games 100%.
Facts also helped make the game more complete as a historical sketch – another section in the special menu, telling about the history of the First World War in events and figures. Facts are revealed regardless of the player’s actions as you progress. From these notes you will learn, for example, why the war started, what the number of victims was, how the life of a simple soldier was arranged. We must pay tribute to Ubisoft Montpellier for its commitment to authenticity and historical accuracy in the presentation of information – all notes are encyclopedic in nature and illustrated with real photographs taken at the front. Of course, the plot of Valiant Hearts does not reveal all the events of the First World War; in some places the story is presented subjectively and information about all the warring parties is not disclosed (in particular, Russia’s participation in the game is practically not mentioned, although our country faced more casualties than any other state: according to some estimates, more than 9 million of our compatriots died in the First World War). But on the other hand, this is explained by the format of the video game, designed to show the fictitious but personal tragedy of one family, which symbolizes the pain of an entire people, an entire era.
«Humanity has gone crazy! You’d have to be crazy to do what’s happening. What a massacre… What scenes of horror and carnage! I can’t find words to convey my impressions. Even hell can’t be this terrible! People have gone crazy!»
So wrote the French second lieutenant Alfred Joubert about the First World War in his diary shortly before his death. The soldiers experienced those events as a personal tragedy. Like many front-line soldiers, each of the heroes of Valiant Hearts keeps his own personal diary, in which he talks about his experiences, shares his innermost thoughts, and writes letters to his loved ones. By and large, during the entire First World War, about 10 billion letters were sent, of which 4 billion were sent in France alone. As mentioned above, they formed the basis of the story. Not a single event that happened in the game will be left unattended, and the heroes will definitely write what they think. There is no doubt that letters from brave hearts can fully convey the essence of front-line correspondence.
“The most humane thing you can do in war is to quickly bring it to an end.”.
Helmut von Molypke
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a game about war and about ordinary people who were caught by surprise by this war. The main focus is on the narrative, and the gameplay is relegated to the background. The game mechanics are quite simple, if not formulaic. Routine gameplay, in which each hero has a limited set of abilities, seems to symbolize the monotony of everyday life at the front. It seems that the game fundamentally rejects the idea of bloodshed, rejecting violence and cruelty. And touching melodies on the keyboard skillfully control the player’s emotions, creating the right mood.
One moment that stuck in my soul was when Emil saved the victims after the bombing, so that they, in turn, would help him move the piano, which was blocking the entrance to some bunker. And now he and I have already saved several people, happy relatives show their gratitude, men are ready to support me in completing my task. But in the background, amidst the burning rubble of a building, a little boy is roaring. It seemed to me that he too could be saved. I spent 10-15 minutes trying to find a way to get to him, but I didn’t succeed. It turned out he was crying over his father’s corpse. And such examples of injustice in Valiant Hearts are quite common.
Despite the fact that at first glance Valiant Hearts: The Great War can be mistaken for an indie project, Ubisoft Montpellier made a game of very high quality, individual, perhaps unparalleled in the gaming industry. Some might compare it to Maus, the only Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel to date that deals with the Holocaust in a peculiarly allegorical manner, with Jews as mice and Germans as cats. Large projects rarely touch on such subtle topics. Valiant Hearts shows a kind but dramatic story, full of heart-warming moments, in which, by definition, there cannot be a happy ending.

