Gerda: A Flame in Winter Preview - The Harsh Flames Of War

thegamer.com:

Gerda: A Flame in Winter is Dontnod's latest game, but it's unlike anything the studio has put out before. It made its name off the back of Life is Strange and Tell Me Why, both magic-realism stories of ordinary teenagers who find themselves in ordinary circumstances, talking in hella cool slang and being as embarrassingly down with the kids as they are emotionally astute and painfully heart wrenching. Twin Mirror, though starring an older protagonist and badly hurt by the late switch from episodic to complete, follows the same formula. Even Vampyr and Remember Me, though both very different, share similar action roots and typically exciting video game stories. Gerda isn't really like them either. It's entirely unique, not just in Dontnod's stable, but across gaming as a whole. It's a brave risk, but after sitting with the game for a week as part of a hands-on preview, I'm unsure whether the risk will pay off.

Gerda: A Flame in Winter sees you play as Gerda, a Danish citizen living under Nazi occupation. It's most similar to Ubisoft’s Valiant Hearts, except more removed from the frontline, and with more of a classic RPG feel to it. War has been a focus of gaming for decades, but with Call of Duty popularising and then leading to rapid oversaturation of the shooter genre, we have increasingly become desensitised to it. War is all about cool kills, blowing up buildings, and calling in choppers to mow down our foes in a righteous rain of fire and blood. Except it's not. War is painful, harsh, cruel, and unrelenting. Even in my brief time with the game, it captures this lonely, despairing essence wonderfully.

Related: After Tell Me Why, Life Is Strange Should Tell Its Own Trans Story

Narratively, as you might expect from