This War of Mine: Forget Celebrations — War Never Ends
Review
This War of Mine was one of the earliest indie games in the 2010s to break into the mainstream with a more elevated idea of what games could do, alongside a few other classics such as Papers, Please and Journey. Over the last decade, there were several DLC expansions, some of which were made for charity. This War of Mine: Forget Celebrations is both a 10th anniversary and a charity DLC. This is a game that keeps on giving and giving, never to be relegated to the dustbin of gaming history.
11 bit studios have had an excellent year as a developer and as a publisher. They have published indie gems such as INDIKA and The Invincible, then released a sequel to the seminal survival city-builder, Frostpunk 2. They were also due to release The Alters, which I previewed, but it has since been delayed to 2025, which makes sense. This War of Mine: Forget Celebrations is their capstone release of 2024, solidifying their legacy.
Katia’s Book Materials
This is a story DLC and there are no new mechanics or features. This War of Mine, the base game, perfected the survival gameplay cycle of base-building by day and scavenging by night while someone stays home to guard it. You start with almost nothing and build yourself up with all the junk you can scavenge bit by bit. Along the way, you will have to endure some hardships and home invasions.
The only new element in this DLC is that you must collect Katia’s book materials spread throughout the area. There are markers on the map to help you localize them and then search through levels until they are found. It adds an interesting dimension to scavenging, a purpose to look forward to more than making it to the next day alive. And of course, you get to see Katia’s story from a different perspective.
Fight or Flight
Anyone who would play This War of Mine only for the action and combat gameplay is probably playing the wrong game for them. There are, of course, instances where you either fight or run off, but I find the best players tend to favour going in and coming out unnoticed, or at least not spotted. The stealth gameplay is not flawless either, but it is consistent and well-designed to suit the game.
Sometimes it feels like the characters are not that responsive, but that depends on their current status: hunger, fatigue, misery… all of this can cause your scavengers to go slower and to react slower, which is consistent with survival gameplay in general. It encourages you to be careful and take only calculated risks.
Prepper Mindset
It feels wholesome to revisit these characters ten years later and finding they are still alive in this never-ending war. Katia is in particularly rough shape, having been injured by a missile, but she’s hanging in there and writing. Marin and Pavle are still kicking, and continue to be valuable characters for survival in general. In this aspect, nothing changed, but the story feels more involving this time around.
The days come and go, and you go on collecting book materials, interacting with people, defending yourself and others, if you can and must. Survival is serious business, and the enduring appeal of This War of Mine is in never cheapening it, gamifying it beyond the functional and pragmatic. You are not out here to thrive in the post-apocalyptic wasteland like a warlord; you are at best prepared and ready.
The Legacy of This War of Mine
Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, Syria, and so on and on… War is a light that never goes out. It may cool down for a few years or decades, but then it comes back in full strength. And this might be only the beginning. The next eight years will be determined by a nefarious technofeudalist coalition, and will likely entail the advent of fully automated wars, with drones, androids, and a myriad of violent bots.
The war of This War of Mine might be a legacy war by comparison, but it remains the best case for how games might treat the subject of war more respectfully to those caught up in it. The consequences of violence must be felt, and the player must feel responsible for people. At the end of the day, there is nothing special about making hard choices to survive, and the best we can hope for is to make it out in one piece.
Disclosure: This War of Mine: Forget Celebrations was reviewed on PC with a Steam key provided by the developer over the course of 6 hours of play time. All screenshots attached were captured during the review process.
Rating: 10 / Masterpiece.
The Good
Compelling survival gameplay;
Strong, layered characters;
Choices have consequences;
Strong writing and dialogue;
Elevated meditation on war.
The Bad
Some minor resolution issues on modern systems.
Gallery
This War of Mine: Forget Celebrations is available on Steam. More information available on the official website.