Hello all. I’m here to tell you about an extravagant game upcoming for PS4. It is called This War of Mine The Little Ones. The original This War of Mine launched back on Steam last year.
It was to put it simply, a masterpiece. A game where your emotions and inner demons make themselves known unlike in any game you’ve played before. This War of Mine focused on a small town torn apart by War conflicts and you the player take control of a small group of people trying to simply live and survive. Now while you may think, “But isn’t living and surviving pretty much the same thing?” No, not exactly. To live in the sense that I am referring to is to try and be happy. To be content as possible as to not to fall down into depression to not be motivated, to be a shell of ones former self. All these things can take place in this War of Mine. For example, playing This War of Mine I found myself looking for food and supplies as my stockpile was getting low.
I chose to search an old house which had what seemed to be a rather elderly couple living there. I was playing only using violence when needed. So I decided to try and sneak through the house and find what I could use. I often found myself leaving things behind on purpose for my concern for the NPCs well being. I came across a dresser filled with materials. But I made a noise and soon came someone looking for me. I hid until the old man went back upstairs. I followed him to the door, and through it my character could hear him speaking to his beloved whom was sick. I needed the supplies including the medicines but I left those behind and only took what I needed. A short time later I decided to check back and see if there was anything else I could take that they may not need, only to find a group of thugs had broken in, killed the couple, and took everything. My heart dropped. I honestly felt bad for these video game characters as if they were real people with whom, like me, were just trying to survive through the war. That ladies and gentlemen is This War of Mine. A game that grabs you and never lets go. With the success of their first game, 11 Bit Studios decided to work on another. I wouldn’t call it a sequel, per say, more of an expansion. This time, as the title suggests, This War of Mine adds children into your mix of survival tactics. Now instead of solely a group of adults, you have children to consider which makes surviving that much more difficult. You may also find yourself doing things you wouldn’t do for yourself to make sure a child survives.
Below is a dialog from Pawel Miechowski from 11 bit studios. taken from PlayStation Blog EU:
This War of Mine: The Little Ones explores the hardships of wartime survival as seen from an entirely new perspective; that of a child. Based on the award-winning This War of Mine, The Little Ones puts you in charge of a group of adults and children stuck in the middle of hell, trying to survive in a besieged city; struggling with lack of food, medicine and constant danger. The question is: how far will you go to make it through another day?
This experience focuses not only on the reality of enduring war, but also the fact that even in times of conflict, kids are still kids – they laugh, cry, play with toys and see the world differently. In addition to thinking about survival, you’ll have to bring back the kid in yourself to understand how to protect the little ones.
This sounds very serious, right? Because it is. Our goal as the devs was to create a mature experience in which you’re seeing war through eyes of a regular people – so not a military action, but a horrible challenge to overcome. As a group of civilians you’ll be facing extremely difficult choices that have to be made just to survive the war: what do you do when you have to sacrifice someone? What do you do when you’re starving but other survivors may have food? You’ll need to find nourishment, as well as medication, bandages and the like. When you run out of necessities, you’ll need to send one man on a mission to scavenge for any supplies. But kids are not as tough as adults – and you will be the ones taking care of them.
During the night maybe you’ll maybe find some parts that can be used to fix a toy, which children can then play with during the day – kids still need entertainment after all. But kids also sometimes need to talk to someone and feel safe, so don’t forget that as well. Kids create bonds with those who protect them and that’s also portrayed in the game.
Again, very serious right? We’ve had this idea from the very beginning of the development of This War of Mine but we were worried that people may not have been ready for such a serious game. Perhaps even quite a shocking one. But the reception of the game was brilliant – we got tons of positive feedback and acknowledgement for showing war as it was. So the next big step was expanding it by bringing kids to This War of Mine. Now, you’ll be able to experience it on PlayStation 4 in This War of Mine: The Little Ones.
The main philosophy behind this project is to portray emotions of people surviving a siege of a city. That also requires picturing emotions of kids – that means not only sadness, but laughter, excitement, and a bit of craziness despite the surroundings. Their active imaginations are also being portrayed, for example you’ll see children even drawing on the walls of the shelter. We feel that the spectrum of the emotions your civilians will make you experience has now broadened greatly – because, in war kids are still kids – and that’s how one could underline This War of Mine: The Little Ones.
Here there’s another piece of news we think you’ll be glad to hear – the PlayStation 4 edition of This War of Mine: The Little Ones will actually contain an exclusive extra shelter known as the “Large Mansion”.
The daytime phase of the game takes place in your shelter and this is where you’ll be caring for survivors and making the tough decisions – so factors like how the building is shaped, how many floors it has, how well it’s fortified and prepared as a potential hideout all have a huge influence over the gameplay itself.
As a result PlayStation 4 players are going to be getting a unique experience here with this new shelter being a part of the game (although you can of course still play in the original shelters too). We’ve spent tons of time in building up this new shelter in the game, spent an enormous amount of time playtesting it and we can’t wait for you guys to be able to check it out.
That’s more than enough to make me interested even if I wasn’t. I hope it has been enough to intrigue you all. I will be posting a review for this as soon as the game is made readily available to me. I have also added a link to the gameplay reveal trailer for you all, as well as a Dev Diary to watch. Keep an an eye out for my upcoming review and as always, Stay Safe and Happy Gaming!