Preview of Gerda: A Flame in Winter: Adventure hit from the creators of Life is Strange?

World War II is a frequent and welcome guest on the video game scene – see Call of Duty: Vanguard, Battlefield V, Call of Duty: World War II and many more. The list is quite long. But the difficult and serious topic is only really popular if you can tackle it with a 900-round machine gun in your hand. Instead, opting for a historically accurate and grueling experience that dispenses with combat entirely will quickly lose most people’s appetite.

The studio Dontnod Entertainment, developer behind Life is Strange or the moderate action role-playing game Vampyr, is now also a publisher. The first game is the emotional war adventure Gerda: A Flame in Winter. We took a close look at the first few hours of play and have to say: it has real potential! At least if you can relate to the genre and aren’t averse to a historical and dark story that sometimes leaves you feeling sad or sad.

In our preview, we reveal what you can expect from the story adventure with slight RPG influences.

A small town in Denmark – full of frost, suffering and Nazis

On the one hand, Gerda’s text-heavy adventure is significantly influenced by true events of the Second World War and the German military offensive against Denmark, which began in April 1940. On the other hand, the PortaPlay studio was inspired by the fate of a real member of the Danish resistance to create a depressing story adventure. After successfully completing her nursing training, the 25-year-old protagonist Gerda returns to her home village of Tinglev and is warmly welcomed at the train station by her Danish husband Anders and her German father Dieter.

Preview of Gerda: A Flame in Winter: 100 possibilities, but morally overwhelmed (2)

Source: Dontnod Entertainment

It is important to mention here: Gerda is half Danish, on her mother’s side, and half German. Her partner, logically and quite rightly, has fairly strong political opinions about the occupiers of his home village, but the same applies vice versa for her dad, who only recently joined the NSDAP and rather welcomes the brutal advance of the Germans. As you will surely notice, there is already a lot of fuel for difficult discussions and hard decisions in the room. In addition, food is becoming increasingly scarce in the tranquil village and relations between the two parties come to a head.

Right at the beginning of our test session, it becomes clear how important our appearance and actions are. Even a banality like carrying our suitcase can have consequences. The first decision we are faced with is which of the two men can relieve us of our travel burden. It’s also possible for us to insist that we don’t need help and that we can do it ourselves, but that doesn’t sit well with either of them…

“Hach, Gerda … what should people think!”

In order to pack the complexity of the precarious situation in the village into a video game system, the Danish development studio relies on various relationship and property values ​​that either enable us to develop conversations in the first place, or even forbid them. Whether it’s the population of the small town, the German Nazi military or the rebel resistance hidden in dark alleys and dense forests, everyone really has an opinion on us and reacts to our actions at lightning speed. This is sometimes a bit illogical, for example in situations like the “travel suitcase scandal”, but it also made us ponder for a long time several times.

A light in the dark: Of course, Gerda wants to protect her friends and family, but how far is she willing to go?

Source: PC Games

In addition to the groups, this rule also applies to individuals and our relationships with them, including Anders and Papa Dieter. If we decide on one helper at the beginning, the relationship with the other immediately deteriorates – my goodness. The team at PortaPlay remains largely true to the minimalist gameplay formula. In addition, there are still property values ​​of Gerda, more precisely three of them: Compassion (sympathy), Insight (sharpness) and Wit (mind).

Be your very own Gerda

After each story chapter, Gerda writes about the latest events in her diary – by the way, the only area in the game that has a soundtrack. In addition, one has to say that the dubbing actress is okay, but due to her very strong and, above all, clear intonation, some immersion is lost. In Gerda’s diary we can decide with which core statement the young protagonist ends her written thoughts. This affects how many points we have in the three trait categories for the next chapter. These can then also be used in the many discussions and lead to different solutions.

Let’s continue on page 2!