This War of Mine
Developer(s)	11 bit studios
Publisher(s)	11 bit studios
Director(s)	Michał Drozdowski Przemysław Marszał
Designer(s)	Rafał Włosek
Programmer(s)	Grzegorz Mazur
Artist(s)	Dominik Zieliński
Writer(s)	Based on inspiring idea of Grzegorz Miechowski
Composer(s)	Piotr Musiał Krzysztof Lipka
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows OS X Linux Android iOS PlayStation 4 Xbox One Nintendo Switch PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X/S
Release	November 14, 2014 Windows, OS X, Linux WW: November 14, 2014[1] Android WW: July 14, 2015 iOS WW: July 15, 2015 The Little Ones PS4, Xbox One WW: January 29, 2016[2] Windows WW: June 1, 2016 Complete Edition Nintendo Switch WW: November 27, 2018 Final Cut Windows WW: November 14, 2019 PS5, Xbox Series X/S WW: May 10, 2022
Genre(s)	Survival
Mode(s)	Single-player

This War of Mine is a war survival video game developed and published by the Polish game development company 11 Bit Studios.^[3] The game, inspired by the siege of Sarajevo among other conflicts, differs from most war-themed video games by focusing on the civilian experience of war rather than front line combat. Characters have to make many difficult decisions in order to survive everyday dangers. There are various endings for each character, depending on the decisions made in the game. The game has received multiple DLCs and sold over 7 million units worldwide across multiple platforms.

Gameplay

This War of Mine is a survival-themed strategy game where the player controls a group of civilian survivors hiding inside a damaged house in the besieged fictional city of Pogoren, Graznavia. The main goal of the game is to stay alive during the war using the tools and materials that the player can gather. Most of the characters under the player's control have no military background nor any kind of survival experience, and will require constant intervention by the player in order to stay alive. The player must maintain their characters' health, hunger, and mood levels until the declaration of a ceasefire, which occurs after a randomized duration.

In the daytime, the survivors will have to stay indoors because hostile snipers are present outside, thereby offering the player time to craft tools from gathered materials, trade, upgrade the shelter, cook food and heal the survivors. At night, the player is given the opportunity to go out and search nearby areas for valuable resources to survive day by day. During their excursions, the survivors, controlled by players, can encounter other NPC survivors of the war, who they can choose to assist by offering food or medicine, or rob and kill. The player can also build a radio inside their shelter, which will provide useful information such as weather warnings, updates on the city's economy, and news of the ongoing war effort to help the player plan appropriate shelter upgrades and scavenging missions.^[4]

The player starts off with one to four survivors whose actions the player can affect. The actions the player makes will change the type of endings each survivor has. Each character has one or two traits that helps/hinders the player, besides hidden, varying stats that affect combat, movement speed, and so on. Some traits are useful during certain days while others are useful all the time. For example, one character named Bruno has a trait called "Good Cook", which helps the player use less fuel and water when cooking meals or brewing moonshine; and Roman, a former rebel who is trained in combat. There are a total of twelve playable characters.^[5] The Little Ones DLC includes the possibility of adding an extra character, a child survivor, that cannot defend itself or perform any of the tasks needed to maintain the shelter at first. In addition, the child survivor must be given constant attention to prevent it from becoming depressed but can be taught by the other survivors to perform small chores like cooking, filtering water, or growing crops, and once bonded with an adult, it can sleep with them in the same bed at night, removing the need for a separate bed for both.

Development and release

The game was inspired by the extremely poor living conditions and wartime atrocities that Bosnian civilians endured during the 1992–96 Siege of Sarajevo, the longest city siege since World War II,^[6] among other conflicts.^[7] Developers researched hundreds of years' worth of civilian accounts of wartime. Charlie Hall in Polygon, describing the developers' efforts, writes:^[7]

This War of Mine is not about Ukraine. It's not about any single conflict. It is about every conflict, and every innocent person imprisoned inside them. This War of Mine is about Ypres in 1914. It's about Warsaw in 1944 and Sarajevo in '92. It's about Mogadishu in '93, Kabul in '03 [sic] and Fallujah in '04. It's about Syria in 2013. It's about Gaza right now.

This War of Mine was released for Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and Linux in November 2014.^[8][9] The Android port was released on July 14, 2015, followed by the iOS port on the following day (July 15).^[10] In November 2014, unlicensed copies of the game were made available online. The developer's response was to post a number of working Steam keys, encouraging downloaders to share them with friends, and buy the game if their financial situation allowed.^[11]

Reception

Impact

In 2020, the Polish Chancellery of the Prime Minister announced that This War of Mine would be added to the recommended reading list in Polish high schools during the academic year of 2020–2021. This was the first initiative in the world to add a video game to recommended readings in school.^[52][49] The Microsoft Windows version of the game is free to download from the Polish government's website, alongside lesson topics for teachers.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 11 Bit Studios announced that all profits earned from This War of Mine for seven days starting 24 February 2022 would be donated to the Ukrainian Red Cross to directly support victims.^[53][54] Within the week the company had raised over £500,000.^[16] In total, $850,000 was raised.^[15]

Board game adaptation

Awaken Realms launched a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016 for a board game adaptation of the video game, designed by Michael Oracz and Jakub Wiśniewski.^[55] The board game, which is a faithful reproduction or even port of the design of the video game,^{[56][57]: 10:35} has received mostly favorable reviews for its role as an artistic statement or educational tool,^[58][57][59] although Charles Hall of Polygon recommends the video game instead.^[56]

After the video game's fund drive for the Ukrainian Red Cross, 11 Bit Studios and Awaken Realms sold off all remaining Kickstarter copies of the board game, with revenue beyond taxes and shipping going toward the Red Cross and a charity evacuating Ukrainian cancer patients.^[60]

References

External links

• Official website