This War of Mine is an anti-war creation by 11 Bit Studios, which returns as Final Cut for several platforms and several innovations, among them: a new classic scenario, a completely different character, remastered versions of each classic scenario, and new missions and events.

In this game, we try a different feeling from that one offered by big games of this genre, like the acclaimed Call of Duty and Battlefield, because we won’t live the moment of combat, but simply as survivors and ordinary people, who are going to face several danger and difficulties all the time, with various stories of similar duration (from 40 to 50 days on game time).



First impressions

At first, I’m sure that the game will cause some weirdness, especially by the fact of the camera perspective, that is, here you will face a vision in the shape of a platform, similar to Grand Chase, I know that the comparation can be rude, but limit yourself to the said parameter and not the game style. Anyway, this will not make your life easy and adaptation for a game is bringing certain news that we talk about in the classic games, but, as we advance, we got used to and this won’t be a boring factor and becomes something simple (paragraph exemplified in the next image).

Besides that, the controls are standard and well explained, it is just a question of time to fix it, grabbing objects that we find, crafting items, taking debris away and opening doors, everything will be automatic.

Not only that, This War of Mine puts a certain slowness that is going to test our patience and put our will in prove to continue in the story, this is because it’s a game where we have to save resources to survive, food, medicine, weapons, and others, besides the need to craft to upgrade some items, like a stove and a crafting table, you’ll need to explore all the aspects offered and several different items, and for this, you’ll need a certain calm and insistence if you are a more immediacy player.

Particularly, I don’t think this is a negative factor because in a war scenery, with mixed feelings of angst, fear, and solitude, the slowness helps in the unique and well-placed immersion made by the developers, feeling the sadness and despair in each character that just wants to survive in the middle of the chaos and bad and heartbreaking scenario of Bosnia (country where the conflict passes).


 

The diversity of choosing

The main narrative lines are usually more explored by players that are interested in the game, the other ways are normally done usually after this initial contact, of course, because I’m aware that are exceptions. So, following this line, I’ll talk a little and in a general way about the two first stories available (spoiler alert!), leaving the third aside to not give that much spoiler and make you want to search for these pieces of information when you play.

The first one is probably the saddest, here we see ourselves in the following situation: a father goes to an abandoned house with his daughter still a child, the kid is seriously sick and can’t even get out of bed. In this place, we face a big challenge, there isn’t much food and we don’t have medicine, but, after a few days (this happens in all the modes) a smuggler will show up to exchange some items for another, among them there is medicine, but it is too expensive, this happens because every exchange is unfair, you give way more than what you receive.

And that’s not all, the difficulties continue because the brother of our child, finds out (without concrete evidence) that the militaries are gathering families with children to run away from the country and he insists at every moment with his father to do the same, to be able to run away from the war, the father doesn’t agree, since his daughter can’t even walk of how sick she is, and probably would die before arriving there. However, on a certain day when you go out of the house to search for resources, your daughter will be missing, strongly suspecting the brother, our character now has to survive and find the girl in the remaining days with few resources.




The second story is equally sad and different about the characters, because here we have two healthy people, at first, and tobacco lovers (seriously, this too smoke and plant all the time, including, if this is not available, they’re going to be upset), husband and wife, in which the man is disabled and he has a podcast to help people with information about the war, reporting where shooters are, the price of certain foods and others.

Now you must be wondering how he receives information if he can’t go out to collect them since he is disabled, it’s simple, his wife, a thief (as the game defines her) goes out to search for resources and face several types of danger to inform this for her husband, and he becomes grumpy when he doesn’t receive any news (it is possible to see the state of our character, trough cards in the corner of the screen when we are controlling them, tiredness, mood, hunger, and health are there).

When someone goes out of the house, if we can call this a house, to explore, in all modes you are going to face danger, like hostile soldiers and collectors, who can rob you, so be careful and alternate to combat mode, because there is the possibility of a fight, with guns or not.



Well, at this point of the review you must be wondering, besides the narrative, are there other good options to this game made by 11 Bits Studio? The answer is yes, the player can choose between two alternative modes, that are interesting when we talk about innovation and similarities like the gameplay, survivor, and create your own story.

The first, as the name suggests, it’s about something with less compromise and without a necessary line of progression, it’s only about survivors like any other civilian in the middle of Bosnia. With this, choosing this mode it’s interesting for those who don’t have an idea of how to save resources enough to survive for so long because you don’t have to worry about searching for your daughter or how to collect news, you just have to survive.

The other option previously mentioned is something innovative, here we have the creative freedom to create our own story, to choose the character, and take the plot in the way we prefer, but you have to remember, when we use more people, it gets harder to survive, your headache will increase with the lack of resources. So, use your creativity and explore the maximum of the several aspects that This War of Mine: Final Cut offers.



 

Like a dog, we die as we live

In this war there aren’t superheroes, plus the fact that the game is challenging, placing you in stressful situations every time, you have just one thing to worry about: surviving. For this, good people don’t exist, steal, trade, and kill, do everything you need to do to achieve this goal, but remember that your character is not a fighter or a trained soldier, it’s just a normal person like us. Prepare yourself, the game won’t make it easier, to reach half of the days without dying, you probably have to do the same mode 2 or 3 times.

In this context, you need to have cold blood, because, despite the slowness of the game, it characterizes the angst of the whole situation, a quick-thinking will be your ally in several situations, to climb or not a ladder to escape from a soldier, to use your resources to eat or trade them for medicine, or other conflicting situations that you have to decide.


 

Final details help

Despising having different perspectives about the camera, the game art with detailing is a contributing factor. Anyway, I mean that with all the immersion that I said before and the sentimental involvement of the player with a war scenery, especially the compassion for civilians and the tension of dying at any moment, this is increased with game graphics, because everything is placed to show chaos and destruction, overthrown and abandoned buildings, deserts roads, and others, everything here was well-considered. Of course, since it has different gameplay from other classic games with that kind of art that needs everything from your machine, like Elden Ring or Forza Horizon, this is not a parameter of comparison used for This War of Mine, but how this aspect is an auxiliary factor of your gameplay.

Finally, another technical detail that can’t be missed is the audio. Well, here you going to feel completely devastated, when you think that you can be more alone than you already are, “boom”, the game surprises us one more time, this is because we have to live only with the environment sound, not even characters lines are reproduced, at most the radio announces tragedies or a perspective of the end of armed conflict (honestly, this never seems to end), also we can’t forget gun shoots noises every time, day and night, nonstop.

   

This War of Mine: Final Cut is available on Xbox Series, Playstation 5, and all Xbox Game Pass platforms (consoles and PC).

We thank the PR team at the studio which provide This War of Mine: Final Cut and made this content possible.