Gerda – A Flame in Winter Preview

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As a Danish-German nurse, you are constantly caught between the Nazi occupiers and the resistance in this story-adventure, and every decision changes your relationship with friend and foe.

All screenshots and video scenes are from GamersGlobal

French developer Dontnod Entertainment is known for story adventure like Life is Strange and action titles like vampire. In 2021, the studio announced that it would also act as a publisher in the future. The first title that Dontod releases is now Gerda – A Flame in Winter from the Copenhagen company Portaplay, which previously supported the development of games, educational applications and other interactive applications on a contract basis.

In Gerda – A Flame in Winter, as the eponymous nurse, you experience the final stages of the Nazi occupation of Denmark in 1944 in the small village of Tinglev near the southern border. Tinglev is in an area that fell to Denmark after the Versailles Treaty. Gerda, child of a Dane and a German, stands between the fronts of these two population groups and also between the occupiers, with whom her father cooperates and the resistance, with which her husband Anders sympathizes.

In the same conversation you can strengthen and weaken a person’s trust in Gerda. You must also take a stand in disputes, gaining favor with one side while the spurned distances itself.

All eyes on Gerda

The story uses the backdrop of this unused World War II setting to bring violent conflicts with the Nazis to life from the perspective of a civilian character. The game director was inspired by the life of his grandmother, who lived in Tinglev and was part of a resistance group during WWII who was betrayed by an informant, which also resulted in her husband Knut being deported to a concentration camp.

The protagonist’s life is turned upside down when she returns home one evening and is greeted by Gestapo officer Stahl, who is standing next to her badly beaten husband. From now on, Gerda has to think carefully about how she can help her husband and with whom she works. In dialogues, your answers affect your familiarity with characters like your boss, Harald. In addition, your behavior has an impact on how attached Gerda is to the Danish or German population and whether she is on good terms with the occupying forces or supports the resistance. So you can talk to Gerda’s father Dieter and his comrades on the street in front of the clinic before Gerda starts work and collect points from the occupiers and her dad, but the protagonist’s reputation with the Danish population falls when she’s so upset casual chat with the Wehrmacht on the open road.

In an earlier scene, as a precaution, I didn’t give out painkillers too lightly. Luckily, I now have medicine left over for Anders who was taken away.

Use what you can get

Before interacting with story-driven hotspots, it’s worth exploring the small areas. Sometimes you increase your inventory of painkillers and other items or have interactions with secondary characters who may remember you later. In risky actions such as stealing cigarettes or attempts to persuade, the dice are rolled, with the chances of success depending, among other things, on your trust values. Some actions are only possible if you have certain items or have collected a pool of points in the mental abilities compassion, cleverness and insight through your decisions, which are then used up. This is how a little role-playing comes into the adventure.

On the city map you select the location of the next scene. Time will pass and you’ll soon have several locations open to you, but you won’t have enough time to visit them all. Even when searching a room, you may only have a certain number of actions before a good opportunity passes.

While there were only English texts and occasional voice output in the demo, the final version should also be localized in other languages.

Author: Hagen Gehritz (GamersGlobal)

Opinion: Hagen Gehritz

Gerda – A Flame in Winter is striking because of the graphic style somewhere between low-poly and impressionism, which I liked as much as the piano-heavy soundtrack. You shouldn’t expect many tricky puzzles here, Gerda focuses on the interactions with the other characters, which constantly change your character values. Although this seems clumsy in its implementation with its tight addition and subtraction of affection points, the systems work well in the demo, precisely because it is not just about abstract status values, but also about the relationship to concrete figures such as Gerda’s cousin, the works as a secretary for Gestapo opponent Stahl, who abducted Gerda’s husband Anders.

The steep camera angle is often unfavorable for the overview when exploring and the dice for chances of success is opaque, but did little damage to the atmospheric scenes. The plot picks up speed quickly and in a positive sense it gets to your kidneys to be Gerda in the Gestapo office. Do I cooperate with the psychopath Stahl? Am I better off stealing medicine for his henchmen so I can claim in the favor for Anders? Can I afford to openly refuse to cooperate with the occupying forces? Such dilemmas make this fresh page of World War II interesting. History buffs will also appreciate the context in Gerda’s diary, for example on petrol rationing in occupied Denmark.

GERDA – A FLAME IN WINTER