Set in during the First World War, Valiant Hearts: The Great War stars 4 playable characters as they attempt to survive the horrific conflict by relying on each other as their journeys intersect.
This is not a war game but a game about war.
• A story inspired by letters written in the First World War.
• 4 playable characters, each with their own special abilities, that the player will alternate control of throughout the campaign.
• Hand drawn comic book style animation powered by the UbiArt Framework.
• 2D puzzle solving gameplay.
• Freddie - An American volunteer who has joined the French army to seek revenge upon the man who ruined his life.
• Emile - A frenchman conscripted into the French army just a few days after the declaration of war. He is on the lookout for his missing son in law.
• Anna - A woman who is attempting to return home to Belgium while putting her veterinarian skills to work tending to those harmed in the conflict, regardless of their allegiance.
• Karl - A German man living in France who was deported back to his home country and conscripted into the German army. He is married to Emile's daughter, Marie, who had recently given birth to their son.
• Walt - A Doberman Pinscher who has been trained to be a Dog Medic for the German army. He will inevitably cross paths with each of the 4 playable characters.
• Directly control your character on a 2D plane while solving gameplay puzzles similar to that of traditional point and click adventure games.
• Each player character is only able to hold one item at a time.
• Utilise your canine companion, Walt, to help solve puzzles and uncover collectables that provide information on World War 1.
• A range of gameplay activities such as creeping through a field of sheep to driving a Mark IV tank.
Gamespot - 8/10
The game's storytelling isn't always as cohesive as it should be. There's a jarring disconnect between the French-accented voice we hear Emile use during gameplay and the British-accented voice that speaks for him during between-level cutscenes. Freddie's storyline fits too neatly into the familiar narrative trope of a man out for revenge against the person responsible for the death of the woman he loved, making his arc feel more like something out of a generic action movie than a proper tale of war. And on multiple occasions, the game leads you to think a dire fate has befallen one or more characters, only to reveal, like the bad resolution of a TV cliff-hanger, that this wasn't the case. But these are minor blemishes on a visually beautiful game that deftly moves between moments of joy and moments of tragedy, and ultimately doesn't shy away from the fact that "great" is just about the last thing any war should be called.
Eurogamer - 7/10
Constantin Guys was forever bound to fail, but in failing he still helped create modernism. And while Valiant Hearts struggles to make sense of itself as a game, in its odd, playful innocence and in its focus on four friends (and a dog) it at least offers a fleeting human perspective on a new kind of war that turned out to be far, far worse in its mechanised violence than anybody was quite expecting.
IGN - 7.7/10
Valiant Hearts focusses on how lives are torn apart, how strangers become saviours, and how madness thrives. It’s a small-scale human perspective of the war, which tries to salvage those little acts of love and heroism from a world overwhelmed by violence. There’s not much of a challenge or a reason to revisit once you’ve finished, but the story alone is worth experiencing. Ultimately, it’s a game about warfare that’s more interested in the people and their experiences, than bullets and their targets. I could’ve done without some of the footnotes and heavy-handed narration, but it remains a beautiful, harrowing experience nevertheless.
Destructoid - 9/10
I don't want to give too much away, but Valiant Hearts: The Great War is significant in many ways. It not only gives us a rewarding and engaging way to see the horrors of war as it pertains to this particular likable cast of characters, but it also educates us on one of the most significant events in history. Ubisoft Montpellier could have just delivered a good game and called it a day, but they went above and beyond the call of duty to add context to the proceedings, and that is quite the commendable effort.
Review Thread
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