Back in the day, Medal of Honor’s developers fought to honour the real experiences of the ageing army consultants they’d come to admire, and it showed.
But if reality influenced an FPS equally indebted to Saving Private Ryan, it’s the bedrock of this puzzle adventure game from the makers of Rayman. At least, that’s how Ubisoft and a handful of historians tell it.
“Valiant Hearts is a fictional look into the ordinary and extraordinary people of World War I, but it is very much inspired by the harsh and even delicate realities of the time,” say the publishers.
“Built on partnerships with official World War I historian groups, Valiant Hearts is a game that reaches beyond mere storytelling and into a past almost forgotten.”
This is news to me, but it turns out Valiant Hearts will actually incorporate short factual accounts of Great War events into the game – and they’ll pop up when we reach a point related to them, like the most sobering codex entries you can possibly imagine.
Ubisoft Montpellier’s is a noble cause – particularly on the centenary of the war’s beginning, as its participants fade into memory. If they can help hammer home the humanity of what must inevitably become history, then they’ve done a great thing.
And hopefully it’ll be a good game too, yeah? Our Jules’ Valiant Hearts preview described an unexpectedly joyful, sometimes brilliantly funny puzzler.
Cheers, XboxAchievements.