This War of Mine review
It hasn’t been a good week.
Downstairs, Pavle lies crumpled on the concrete floor, doubled over in agony at a wound we don’t have the bandages to dress, and crippled by a four day hunger that a single can of food could barely touch.
In the sitting room, sunk into a makeshift sofa touched by grey sunlight, Bruno darkly contemplates what it took to get that can, having last night broken into a house on the edges of this war-torn city and stolen all he could while its elderly inhabitants watched on, helpless, in horror.
Katia, the third inhabitant of this dilapidated dwelling, stands at the door, desperately bartering with a neighbour for another scrap of food that would mean another day of survival in this mundane hell.
Price and availabilityAvailable now for PC and Mac on Steam – £14.99
This War of Mine isn’t like other war games. The first gunshot you hear won’t have the blockbuster boom of a pistol being fired off in Call of Duty or Battlefield – it’ll likely be a thin, hollow crack that pierces through the dead of night – but it’ll carry much more weight, the result of your own panicked scavenge hunt for more resources or, worse, from the barrel of one of the bandit patrols that work their way across town.
Polish developer 11 bit Studio’s new game is The Sims by way of 90s Sarajevo, in which you babysit survivors of an unnamed war. You’re tasked with feeding them, ensuring they get a good night’s rest and looking out for their physical as well as mental health – something that’s already as fractured and fragile as the mortar-struck walls they live within. It shares some traits with The Sims, but it certainly doesn’t share the blithe cheeriness. This is a pointedly grim game.
