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Valiant Hearts dev diary shows history, emotion
Ubisoft Montpellier has released the first developer diary for Valiant Hearts: The Great War. Titled "Art & Emotion," it explains how the project first began, shows off some new gameplay footage, and explores the history that the game deals with.
Despite the game's cartoonish style, I can't help thinking that this will be one of the few accurate portrayals of war in the gaming medium. Whereas most of today's gaming focuses on glorifying the "awesomeness" of war, Valiant Hearts is interested in showcasing the cold reality.
WWI is the perfect war to explore this, as it was both incredibly deadly and incredibly morally messy, with no real "right" side. It was such a dismal war that historians have noted a period of great disillusionment following it. WWII had Nazis, bad guys we all love to hate; it's easy to think of the Allies as heroes against such a force. But in WWI, it wasn't so black-and-white. It was just a ton of brutality that many survivors ended up seeing as ultimately pointless. Without any clear heroes or villains, WWI is the perfect war to set a game like this in.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War will launch for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on June 25.