This War of Mine: The Little Ones is likely to be one of the most challenging games you’ll play on PlayStation 4 this year, and for good reason: it’s one of the few titles out there that really makes you think about what you’re doing. Originally released on PC a few years ago, the game is a far cry from glossy, Hollywood-esque blockbuster shooters we’ve become accustomed to, where you’re a walking tank with regenerating health; rather, This War of Mine is a hardened survival romp, where the well-being of several individuals—children now included, hence the game’s subtitle—falls directly in your war-weary lap.
Inspired by the real-life events of the Bosnian War during 1992-1996, specifically the Siege of Sarajevo, This War of Mine is a bleak, narrative-driven affair, where you must carefully juggle several responsibilities to survive in a war-torn environment with a group of fellow survivors. During our hands-on with the game in London, it became apparent that 11 Bit Studios’ critically acclaimed survival romp will really tug at your moral compass and pull at your heartstrings as you attempt to do the best for your group one a day-to-day basis.
We started out in a dilapidated apartment block with a handful of characters under our wing, including a young girl, who is the daughter of one of the playable characters. Here, we were given the basics of This War of Mine, with daytime-based activities focusing predominantly on improving your living conditions and spending time with fellow survivors. The apartment block had several rooms of interest, so we immediately got to work on scavenging for essential materials, digging through rubble, picking locks, and generally sifting through the remnants of a once normal life to grab anything we could get our hands on.
This isn’t just to pass the time, either. You have a work bench installed at your crude base camp, which you can use to cobble together stuff like beds, a stove, and other useful items to improve your living conditions. After all, you’ll want your fellow survivors to be able to have a good night’s kip and eat a hot meal, or you’ll risk them losing the will to live. That’s not an exaggeration either, as you need to keep an eye on people, especially the children, to evaluate their state of mind. For example, one of our team was sleep deprived, while the daughter needed to spend some quality time with her father as she was getting a bit down in the dumps; if you ignore these signs, then you’re not going to do yourself any favors.
Switching between characters to juggle responsibilities is instrumental in completing tasks, as you’ll want to acquire as many supplies as possible; letting one poor chap do all the donkey work is counter productive, and he or she is likely to be knackered afterwards to boot. We made sure we had everyone pulling their weight, especially as some tasks, such as borrowing through rubble with our bare hands (you can use a shovel if you have one to reduce the time) tasks a while. The sense of responsibility is palpable, and there’s a rewarding sense of accomplishment to be had when you manage to get a good day’s work done and actually provide for your rag-tag group of survivors.
Of course, you also have to get to work at night, too. During the day, snipers make it too dangerous to venture outside the relative safety of your hideout, but when the sun goes down, it’s another kettle of fish. Here, you must carefully decide who is best to go out and hunt for new locations and scavenge for supplies. This isn’t an arbitrary decision either; some folk may not have enough inventory space or may not be in the right mindset to complete the tasks ahead, so you must pick wisely. We opted for someone with plenty of space, while putting the little girl and another to sleep, and left the remaining member to guard the hideout. We weren’t able to penetrate much further in our search for new territory, although it was obvious from a quick glance at the map that there’s plenty of areas to explore in This War of Mine. For our hands-on, we picked an abandoned cottage to start off exploring.
Fortunately, we survived the night of gathering goods and made it back in one piece, although we were told that isn’t always the case. You’ll find yourself battling against enemies at some point, and firearms and ammo exceptionally scarce, it becomes a top priority to carefully manage your equipment for when you most need them. We were also informed of a crucial sequence that takes place in a supermarket, where your character has a chance to stop a possible sexual assault or opt out of intervening. Sadly, we didn’t get to see this for ourselves, although it’s clear that This War of Mine will present you with some tough choices ahead.
Though brief, our hands-on time with This War of Mine: The Little Ones was compelling and intriguing. The micromanagement of various supplies and your fellow survivors ensures there is never a dull moment, and we love the fact it gives you plenty to think about as you juggle multiple responsibilities like a trained circus clown juggling plates. It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the game shapes up as you delve into deeper, deadlier territory and come up against some heart-wrenching moral choices as you fight for survival. Consider us well and truly hooked.