War. War never changes. In This War of Mine: The Little Ones you get to see an aftermath of war on a much more human level.
This War of Mine is a war survival game. During the day the city is overrun with snipers so you have no choice but to stay indoors and attempt to make food, medicine, or upgrade your shelter. At night you can select someone to stay on guard, someone to sleep, and someone to go scavenging for more supplies.
That is just the basic description of the game. Once you have got that down the real game begins. When the game starts off you are already in a rundown shelter with little-to-no supplies. There’s no bed, there’s no food, nothing. Oh and someone is probably sick, or hungry, or tired. In reality this is probably what it would be like if a war did break out. Each character in your shelter has a trait that helps in some situations. A good cook will use less fuel when cooking. A good scavenger has more room in their bag to carry supplies. How you use each character is up to you. Everything is important in this game. You need to rest, you need to eat, if you are wounded or sick you need to get better. To top it off, you need supplies to make your shelter more liveable.
At night you can send someone out to go try and gather more supplies. Will they find what they need? If they do, what will they do to get what they want? Trade? Rob? Kill? These are the actions that you are faced with as you try to survive.
The game does an amazing job of making you care about everything that’s happened. There was one point where one of my characters was sick, but two kids came to my door and they needed medicine for their mother. Well after thinking about it for some time I ended up giving away all my medicine to these kids.
Everyone kept telling me how sad this game was and they were right. Some of the characters you encounter while scavenging the city at night have some tragic backstories. Some are just trying to survive, others are trying to survive at any cost.
This game has RTS elements as during the day you can send different characters to do different things throughout the shelter and I found that really interesting. I also found it increasingly difficult to keep using the same characters over and over for things as they would tired or sick faster. Keeping your best character up all night then having them upgrade during the day makes them more tired and more likely to make mistakes.
Graphically the game has a graphic novel like feel which really helps the desolate nature of these environments. You can almost feel the cold from your shelter as you play. Failing to keep members alive doesn’t end the game, but you feel the impact of losing someone. I found myself restarting quite often.This War of Mine: The Little Ones is another great addition the already expanding Xbox One library. It’s dark, desolate, and really makes you care for everyone you come across.
Overall, This War of Mine: The Little Ones for the Xbox One is quite a good game that had me coming back for more. While the game is only $29.99 to buy it’s quite high, but for the replay value behind the game it’s well worth it. You’ll be spending a lot of time helping people out in-game. If you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind adventure game you’ve found it.
