This War of Mine is an example of a title that, for all it's cheapo visuals and animations, repetitive content and lack of a lot of interesting or unique mechanics, still manages to deliver a powerfull message using the medium of videogames.

This game is surprisingly gripping: once you start out, your shelter is a bitch, with nothing but piles of rubble and an empty fridge. But you always have something to do, and taking care of your survivors is very addicting. After you make tools, beds, a stove for coocking, a radio for listening to news, you need to take care of food, fuel, meds, even the emotional well-being of the characters. And it's amazing how This War of Mine uses it's mechanics to not only deliver the central message, but make you personally invested in lives of people you're watching over.

But with the "classic mode", it is very easy to fall into a routine, and you eventually start viewing these people trying to survive a genocide(?) as little more than chores. It felt genuinely awful the first time I had to steal food and scraps from an old couple, and this sadness also reflected on my characters. But a few runs in you become numb to it, to the point where my mind was more occupied with gaming the system and planning how I can be the most despicable human ever for the least penalties. You start thinking: "So I have a few spare bottles of alcohol, which means I can send my guy with the biggest backpack into a family house, murder everyone there, take all their stuff, and after he returns I can make him drink away the pain and he'll be back in shape in a few days. Nice!".

But I think the devs knew about this issue, which is why they later added character-driven narrative scenarios with the Stories DLC(s). In every scenario, there are only a few characters you have control over, and you have specific objectives and character motivations to work through in your playthrough. In Fading Embers, the protagonist is Anja, a granddaugther of a local artist, who died shortly before the war, and who's collection of valuable art pieces Anja now looks over. As a whole, Fading Embers is focused on national cultural heritage and what it means to different people, and the whole point of this scenario, besides surviving, is preserving as much art as possible before you can get it to safety. And the game is pretty carefully balanced here, to the point where there are a lot of risks and conciderations, but you're not forced to act out of character. I really liked it, because while the base-game offered a lot of emotional gameplay, Fading Embers, and all other Stories, offered more context and a cast of believable characters to ease your immersion into this world.

And This War of Mine's biggest strenght is definitely it's immersivness. It does require you to turn on your empathy a little too much at times, but for what it's worth, this game is a unique and a powerfull experience when it works. And when it doesn't...well, I can forgive that.