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Did you know that embroidery was a popular pastime throughout the PoW camps of the First World War? It kept the hands and minds of the men engaged when it must have been near impossible to consider anything other than their current predicament. If ever I learnt that at school then it is knowledge that I've long since forgotten, but I definitely recall being told of the ravages of trench foot and how soldiers lost toes to prolonged exposure to the wet, oozing mud. A child's mind has a peculiar talent for retaining the outlandishly gruesome, I suppose. Valiant Hearts: The Great War is full of such incidental details, brought to life by scores of collectibles scattered throughout its meticulously detailed, melancholic landscapes, to be pondered or pased-over as you see fit. At its heart, Ubisoft's latest digital experiment to be powered by the UbiArt Framework engine is an action-puzzler with a story that revolves around five characters of varied backgrounds, nationalities, genders and motivations, tied together by the indiscriminate consequences of war. But it's also about the many faceless and nameless mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, siblings, lovers, friends and comrades - individuals on both sides of the conflict who constitute the massive numbers that we're so used to hearing about in connection to The Great War - all wrapped-up in an interactive experience. Based on two hours play, it's coming together as a moving, funny and wonderfully realised game.
"Think of it another way," says Ubisoft Montpellier associate producer, Greg Hermittant. "It's a game about a war that's less popular than World War Two, where you don't kill people."
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