This War of Mine

One of the best all-around games I’ve played all year. A crisp, consistent atmosphere, intuitive gameplay, and surprising depth create a fantastic experience.

Almost documentary game focused on the lives of civilians in a war zone. Can you keep them healthy and fed until the end of a war? It's definitely harder and more interesting than shooting your way through the enemies. [Issue#248]

It is a video game that makes you perform familiar video game actions at the expense of all the reasons most people play video games, even going so far as to be ironic at times.

A deeply atmospheric, emotionally compelling game that manages to treat war as a serious topic and examines the hard choices made by those caught in the middle of conflict.

Whether you choose to perceive it through a moral lens or not, there’s a great tactical survival mechanic driving this game beneath the didactics. Although the events it depicts are depressing to contemplate at length, I found myself coming back again and again to try and get it right somehow, beat the odds, and save my people.

The game's unflinching depiction of wartime suffering is particularly unsettling in a medium that commonly focuses on pyrotechnics and headshots. [Jan 2014, p.118]

This War of Mine focuses on civilians rather than armed soldiers. It is extremely refreshing even though the game shows the dreadful constituents of war. With a dense atmosphere and an impressive depth, this is one of the decade's most important cultural experiences.

It's continually bleak and upsetting, sure, but always compelling and always powerful. [Jan 2015, p.83]

It's hard, remorseless and soul-crushingly depressing, but it's also a must play game.

This War of Mine makes you realise the terrible nature of war better than a thousand ad-campaigns can. Trying to survive in this surreal world is hard, and asks sacrifices you are probably not willing to take. Very impressive.

Minor criticisms aside, I think This War of Mine is the last great game of 2014. Representing a horrid subject in an honest way, its as effective a critique of war as any movie I’ve ever seen or book I’ve ever read.

You’ll be dropped into a blighted world and be left to figure out your own path, making fatal mistakes and incurring tragic losses before coming to the conclusion that precious few videogames have ever had the nerve to draw… War is hell.

This War of Mine describes brilliantly the darker (and at times brighter) sides of the human being. “Fun” is not the best word to describe it, but it sure is compelling and a good challenge as well.

There is no hero in shining armor, you don’t even know what the soldiers are fighting for. What matters are you and your bitter fight for survival. Every day is a struggle against hunger, disease loneliness and loss of hope. Relentlessly and without judging 11Bit Studios show the dark side of armed conflicts, the suffering, the scars. It is a software monument against war – brilliant.

This War of Mine is probably one of the first modern titles capable of mixing mechanics with a strong message without breaking the ludo-narrative dissonance. A rogue-like masterpiece and one of the best indie games of the year.

This War of Mine is one of the most emotionally investing games I’ve played in years, and it doesn’t need a complex set of gameplay systems to be what it is… a great game, and a deep piece of art on the horrors of war.

In an industry where conflict tends to be approached mostly in heroic terms, with only limited attention paid to its effects on individuals who are not wielding power, This War of Mine is a solid surprise, and given its small price, as many gamers as possible should try it out and see what it has to offer.

This War of Mine delivers a setting that is depressing and unsettling. It's a slow-paced resource management strategy game that will hang over you long after you walk away from it.

This War of Mine is one of the most successful survival games we have seen recently. The game shows us a different and cruel aspect of war. It's a very emotional and heart touching adventure.

This War of Mine is a brave endeavor. We see wonders done with this game in a potential sequel; one that will hopefully get a bigger budget, so we can see the genre evolve even more.

Its style and gameplay might not be the most innovative one but that isn’t even necessary to leave a lasting impression on me. In This War of Mine, none of my actions were of no consequence. After about 8 hours, my journey was finally over but I couldn’t really feel happy about it. In my thoughts, I was still pondering about all the terrible things I had to do in the game. Therefore, I can attest that the game succeeds at the task to accurately represent all of its themes. This War of Mine isn’t “fun” to play but took me on an emotional journey, like only a select few games ever managed.

No matter how many hours you invest into bettering your situation, it's a constant struggle to survive in This War of Mine.

This War of Mine is a powerful and intimate portrayal of war through the eyes of ordinary civilians. An immense weight is put on the value of human life and moral decisions that can put your own well-being at risk. It’s a thoughtful and heavy game, but one that’s well worth playing.

The war ain't some glorious thing like portrayed in Call of Duty; it's the definition of darkness and horror as This War of Mine will show you. What's the price of survival? It's yours to decide in this truly awesome game.

This War of Mine has some flaws, but all in all it's a great, strong game to remember. It pulls you in and generates lots of emotions just like the biggest and best games but it's not easy and pleasant: the gameplay immediately takes the player to the deep end without explaining the rules. The developers have managed to create a playable game without sacrificing a really difficult theme, and that's not an easy task.

It is an unique experience, accessible and touching. If you're looking for something different, don't miss it.

One of the year's most thoughtful games.

11 bit Studios’ greatest success with This War of Mine, it turns out, is in creating a videogame that is profoundly unpleasant to experience.

Not many games can claim to be "edifying." I think this one can. [Issue#257, p.75]

Offers little new in terms of gameplay, but it's hard to deny the power of the games message, which will stay in your head for a long time.

The slow pace can make it less tempting to try again right away with a different tactic, but perhaps that’s for the best.

Grim and edifying in equal measure. [Jan 2015, p.54]

After 26 days I stood in tragic disbelief in front of the depopulated remains of the enclave I had cobbled together from trash and others peoples hopes. What other games dare to give you that kind of experience?

Survival sim in the ruins of the city will shake your morality, mood and conviction.Improve your slum, plunder stores and dig graves. War has never been so interesting from the perspective of civilian. And rough.

In This War of Mine you control a group of civilians, who are struggling to survive during a war conflict. Based on the siege of Sarajevo, the game offers a great experience the real terror of war.

This War of Mine does not pull punches. Introducing the horrors of the recent Bosnian war to the mainstream and unsuspecting public, it does so with finesse and through the tearful eyes of the refuges, the simple citizens, the everyday survivors lost in a war not of their own wish or making.

If you can take all the messages and empathy out of This War of Mine, then it boils down to a rather simplistic survival experience that takes around 40 to 50 in-game days to complete.

A bizarre, intense, brave, different game. It's got some issues, but if you're looking for an intelligent and peculiar game, you should give it a try.

The reality of war, hammered home through stark visuals and tight resource management, in a game where just surviving another day is winning.

This War of Mine is a game whose simple message - that war is hell, and that we're all capable of being sucked into its moral depths - might be slightly compromised by its strengths as a game, but at least it's a message carried with a great deal more conviction than other, more bombastic portrayals of conflict. That, for certain, is something to be thankful for.

Ruthless and emotionally destabilizing, This War of Mine is the merciless portrait of what evil man is capable of causing. The conflict saw through the eyes of civilians is terrible at least as that experienced by soldiers on the fields of war.

With its laborious gameplay, This War of Mine is not a game for everyone... but it's probably the most interesting game about War and the more engaged and efficient "serious game" so far.

This War of Mine is an important game, both as a glance into the life of civilians ruined by war, but also as a great survival game. It's only a shame that the tedious days and repetitive encounters hamper the experience.

It’s hard to recommend a game that makes you feel disgusted or upset, but I’m doing it anyway. This War of Mine is great, it just asks a lot from its players.

A stark statement about war delivered through deftly designed stealth survival and resource management. Important, but unrelentingly cruel.

Regardless of its shortcomings, This War of Mine is a hugely powerful game.

This War of Mine is a very peculiar game, based on simple survival mechanics made pretty challenging by the realism of the experience.

Is this a game you want to play? No. Is it a game anyone with a beating heart should play? Yes. A million times yes. It's a longform exercise in empathy, a sobering piece of work that fills in the blanks left when all we see of war are the headshots.

The work of 11 bit Studios is a marvelous cross between the aesthetic of Deadlight and the idea behind Zafehouse Diaries... With no zombies involved. A game about survival at its hardest, deepest, most depressing and most realistic shape. Its setting has that bit of post-apocalyptic game, but actually moves us to a reality that many people lives at many places right now. This War of Mine is the to war games like protest songs to pop-rock ones. A bold, brave and exciting offering that deserves to be played.

This War of Mine makes the most of its clean, attractive graphics, its moody ambient soundtrack, and the intense, emotional nature of its gameplay. You’ll care about your refugees, and you’ll want to work hard to keep them healthy, fed, alive, and well. Unfortunately, This War of Mine doesn’t make it easy.

That earnest human touch keeps This War of Mine compelling even when you mess up and the rubble all comes tumbling down around you, leaving you just enough hope for the next attempt that you'll dive back in and endure it all again.

An ambitious game about an important subject. Sadly, it gets a bit repetitive after a while. Please make an expanded sequel with more stuff to do and more ways to interact with other survivors! [Jan 2015]

In terms of basic gameplay, this War of Mine is actually quite a bit like The Sims.

The emotional side, be it notes scribbled by the characters or encounters with other survivors, is hands down the best thing in the whole game.

This War of Mine is a great counterpoint to the yearly influx of war games, and uses the language of video games to present a harrowing real-life experience in a way that’s often particularly engaging. It’s dark, it’s sad, it’s often crushing and difficult. It might not be fun, but it’s definitely worth experiencing.

This War of Mine conveys the horrors that occur when trying to survive war time. Not through story, but through gameplay which is done perfectly. It is a heavy game that touches upon subjects that are usually kept quiet. It's too bad that the roguelike element of having to start over again and again in this game, stands in the way of really leaving a mark.

The narrative wants to be mature, but that can't come easy without a proper work on the characters, which feel somehow too flat to really emerge. Truly a shame, since the game loses its most powerful aspect, namely the dark atmosphere, and sometimes become just another survival with a management aspect.

Overall, while I found This War of Mine to be an intriguing and novel game, I didn’t really enjoy it. It is downbeat and somber to a fault, especially if things start deteriorating and you have to watch your civilians get ground down into nothing.

For a game, it's more eye-opening than it is entertaining.

This War of Mine is a soul crushing thing to consider as entertainment. It is going to make you feel bad and absorb the consequences of your actions. It exists as a piece of indie expression that shows the actual grayness that is inherent in all conflict. There is no winning.

This War of Mine wants you to care about the people who have been affected by the war, rather than soldiers on the front-line. Via conflicting thoughts the characters have, the cast’s paper-thin stories and an elementary crafting system, it never fully reaches its potential. But the moments where you’re racing across an outpost trying to dodge military fire and robbing someone blind right before their eyes; those are the points where this war does genuinely feel like mine.