This War of Mine Will Turn Players Into Helpless Civilians

StewShearerOld

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Jan 5, 2013
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This War of Mine Will Turn Players Into Helpless Civilians


11 Bit Studios says This War of Mine will be "a dark survival" game centered around the trials of life in a war zone.

When it comes to war, video games have established a pretty firm standard on what the player's role is. You're the soldier fighting in the streets, the pilot in the sky backing them up or, in strategy titles, the commander guiding them as they charge into battle. If 11 Bit Studios has its way though, players will be experiencing a side of war seldom seen in the realm of gaming: that of the suffering civilians.

The Poland-based studio recently unveiled this vision in an announcement trailer for its new game This War of Mine. The trailer sadly doesn't show any gameplay but it does manage to be fairly chilling, focusing in on a typical looking war sequence that slowly transitions into an apartment where a family is dealing with the death of a loved one caught in the fighting.

Speaking about the game, 11 Bit Studios described it as "a dark survival game" where "the focus is shifted away from military operations" and will instead be turned toward controlling "a group of civilians trying to stay alive in a besieged city." According to lead designer Michal Drozdowski the game will be based in part on real life events. "This can happen in your city, in your country," he said. "We decided to work around this idea and make something real, something that moves people and makes them stop think for a second. It's about time that games, just like any other art form, start talking about important things."

Obviously we haven't seen any of the actual game yet, but just from the trailer and the description it's looking like an exciting and original experience. What do you think? Could you get behind being a helpless civilian or would you rather keep war titles focused on the flash, bang and boom of conflict?

Source: <a href=http://www.11bitstudios.com/blog/en/16/this-war-of-mine/22/todays-the-day-weve-been-waiting-for.html>11 Bit Studios




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Erttheking

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Damn, this looks like a really interesting idea. I really hope that they manage to pull this off successfully.
 
Oct 20, 2010
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I'm in! What a great setting for a survival game. That song! So eerie, I love it. I want to use it for a Dungeon im running on Friday.
 

Makabriel

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The 5% optimist in me is intrigued.
The rest of me is waving it off because it'll just be another PVP grief fest like all of the other survival games out there. DayZ? Rust? Had nothing to do with surviving zombies, it's about surviving whoever has the most stuff.
 

Epicspoon

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I'm not a huge CoD fan but when I play a level that takes place in a civilian area I always think to myself "I want to play as a civilian trying to save his family and I don't want failure to be the only option" because the stuff civilians go through is just as much a part of war. It's something that's disappointed me in every war based game I've ever played. I just hope we'll be able to grab a gun occasionally. Not because I need everything to be "Kill the enemies" but because if you were trying to defend yourself you would grab a gun if given the chance too and not being able to do so would destroy my suspension of disbelief. Maybe it wouldn't always be the best solution but you should at least have the option.
 

Wujek Grga

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Hi Makabriel pesimist.
It's not PVP. It's a serious game - single player experience - where you control a group of civilians. The idea behind is about the war as seen from the perspective of civilians.

thx
Pawel (writer from 11 bit)
 

AntiChrist

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I'm not going to throw down money for a game based on a teaser trailer, but if 11 Bit Studios' goal was to get me to keep up on current affairs regarding their upcoming game, then mission accomplished!
 

St3rY

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SilverStuddedSquirre said:
I'm in! What a great setting for a survival game. That song! So eerie, I love it. I want to use it for a Dungeon im running on Friday.
The melody is from the 1969 hit "Gyöngyhajú lány" from Hungarian rock band "Omega".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs-PQXbpu0o
 

WashAran

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Now that is a smart idea!

Wujek Grga said:
Hi Makabriel pesimist.
It's not PVP. It's a serious game - single player experience - where you control a group of civilians. The idea behind is about the war as seen from the perspective of civilians.

thx
Pawel (writer from 11 bit)
Sound awesome.

PS: Please dont use words like serious or matur to describe your game.
 

Skeleon

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This sounds awesome. I can't believe I haven't seen that idea used in video games before (it probably was and I'm just not aware of it, but still; it's rare for sure). Definitely going to keep an eye on this one.
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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This is a fantastic premise, and I am very interested in seeing the finished product. I'll definitely be following this thing going forward. With any luck, it'll be as good as my imagination paints it.
 

remnant_phoenix

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It's. About. Time.

I've been thinking for a while that this is what we needed. We've had WAY too many games centered around the glorification of war. THIS is the sort of thing we need more of if we're going to explore gaming as storytelling medium: we have a glut of the video game equivalent of storming the beach in Saving Private Ryan; we need games that explore the OTHER themes and ideas in that film, themes of personal loss and sacrifice, ideas and themes that are hardly explored in bigger-budget games.
 

flying_whimsy

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The concept has a lot of promise; even better that it's a single player game.

I'm a little worried there isn't even a hint about when it's coming out.
 

Racecarlock

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Oh so this game I imagined comes to life, but not the one in which doctor who travels back in time, fits a cyborg implant on a dinosaur, then uses the dinosaur to chew daleks into tiny tiny bits.

I mean I'm not even a who fan but I really want to play that.