The train sets sail... and the great war begins

I am a great fan of history for many reasons, my father was a teacher in a school and although he gave a very different subject to history he was a friend of a man who is one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject I know, I remember debating in the courtyard of my house with my father about what moment in history had been the most decisive to bring down all the dominoes to where we are today, among the options were the Treaty of Versailles or the Second World War but one of the most interesting proposals was that of the Great War: The first world war that was unleashed after the death of a certain archduke.

This war is often the shadow of the second world war because that one had a much clearer narrative of who were the good guys and the bad guys (big quotation marks) but I think this one has many interesting moments like the advancement of technology, the use of new types of weapons as well as the general changes in the armies due to everything that was coming. Valiant Hearts may be the best videogame focused on this great war and competes with This War Of Mine as the best war videogame that is not a shooter, and of course is one of my favorite games.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War is one of the best modern Ubisoft games, the visual style is unique as well as the inspiration of the whole story, the theme of the first world war served as inspiration to transform the plot of an exiled German soldier and a French in one of the most emotional I've played, in the middle of everything we are told different stories of soldiers from both armies through letters, focusing mainly on the early years of the war and specifically in the German advance and the French resistance at the beginning of the war.

We start from the bottom having to enter the French army but the game has a very organic and effective way of introducing us to the war in a way that is gentle at first, which escalates until we see the direct and indirect consequences of the conflict, much of this can even be seen documented in an extensive museum style in the notes section of the game, so we can see what the trench warfare meant for both armies, some battles and how important they were as well as some of the events that made each of these historical events possible, Emile's main plot is our main focus of attention and where we spend much of the story but there are so many things around that it is worth a lot to just sit and read some of the entries that are added to us with each level.

It's time to talk about how to play Valiant Hearts because despite being a war game it has a much more focus on being an adventure with some problems along the way that we must solve to something else, sometimes these problems will be linked to various historical events that then we will be extended with the diary entries but we will be mixing a lot of action moments on the battlefield with some simpler puzzles outside the main focus of the war, the game puts us in the most intense moments of the conflict as well as the calmer ones, we follow different soldiers on the battlefield and each of their stories are worthwhile as well as being based on real stories of the soldiers of the war.

There are so many reasons why Valiant Hearts is among my favorite games, maybe I'm overthinking too much or I'm also a history nerd lol but now on a serious note this is one of the games where you can see the love that the developers put into each of the things they show, each action sequence is equally captivating as are the moments in the camp receiving instructions, I can only recommend you to play it if you like the story and if not, then also play it.