You remember Valiant Hearts, don’t you? It’s the idiosyncratic, side-scrolling UbiArt Framework game that isn’t Child of Light, and that’s probably going to be better. For two reasons: a) it’s built by the men and women at Ubisoft Montpellier who made Framework in the first place, and b) they’ve made idiosyncratic and side-scrolling their day job since Rayman Origins in 2011.
It’s out in less than a month, and makes war look a lot less fun than we’ve become accustomed to. Check it out.
So: tonally quite different to Rayman. In Rayman Origins, conflict isn’t triggered by this deceased Archduke or that collapsing European empire, but by the limbless one and chums relaxing so loudly they wake the undead.
By contrast, Valiant Hearts is an all-too-real story of “broken love” and a “world torn apart” at the beginning of the last century. Despite what the trailer would have you believe, however, it still finds room for comedy, and dripfeeds some of its sacrifice, tragedy and horror through the more palatable medium of dogs.
Speaking of palettes, the UbiArt Framework will enable scenic variety ranging from “dank trenches to green forests and snowy fields”, apparently. The Montpellier team have been able to snip their concept art from the page and glue it directly into the game world.
We’re less clear on how it plays. But there’ll be puzzles, tackled from multiple perspectives.
Valiant Hearts will be on the PC from June 25 for £11.99. That sound about right to you?