War Games: 3 Excellent Games That Explore Conflict in Unique Ways

War games let players explore history and combat on their own terms, whether that means letting you control strategy in games like Civilization or blast away enemies in the combat simulations of games like Call of Duty. But there is a common criticism of war games: that they glorify combat, making violence look appealing and ignoring the real-world effects war can have on people.

While some games focus on fast-paced, realistic combat, that’s not all that’s out there. These three games explore other facets of war, humanizing people on multiple sides of the conflict and creating an interactive experience that explores the consequences. While they vary greatly in gameplay, these war games all aim to do something unique within their genre.

Valiant Hearts Humanizes Multiple Sides of World War I

World War I can be a complicated plot to untangle, but it’s called The Great War for a reason—as the first major war of the twentieth century and the cause for over 37 million deaths, WWI had a devastating impact on Europe.

There were no clear villains or good guys in WWI. It was a tangled web of alliances and invasions that affected much of Europe regardless of political affiliations, meaning even neutral countries like Belgium were invaded and dragged into the conflict.

The confusing nature of World War I makes games like Valiant Hearts possible. Rather than villainizing one side of the conflict, the game lets players take on the roles of French, German, American, and Belgian characters. It’s an excellent examination of how the war affects people individually, particularly since not every character is a soldier. Unlike many war games, Valiant Hearts aims to humanize the people most affected by war—soldiers on both sides, civilians, and non-combat participants like nurses.

Play a Civilian in War Games Like This War of Mine

War doesn’t just affect soldiers; it can also wreak havoc on the lives of ordinary citizens, who spend large portions of their lives in fear of attack. Most war games follow the adventures of soldiers, but This War of Mine takes a different approach, putting you in the shoes of citizens whose lives are threatened by the consequences of war, rather than the combat itself.

Inspired by the real-world Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, This War of Mine focuses on the experiences of bystanders trapped in their homes, unable to venture outside due to snipers. Instead they have to survive through the day and venture out at night, often encountering other survivors that can either be helped with food and medicine, or killed for more supplies.

It’s a brutal and honest look at the experiences of war, imposing moral decisions on the player at every turn. This War of Mine makes you ask yourself how far you’ll go to save your family and what the real cost of war can be, and its limited combat system lets you experience the powerlessness of civilians trapped in a war-torn home. All you can do is survive day-to-day—there’s no way to directly take on the people who are pulling the strings behind the devastation.

It’s a radical and very different approach from most war games, but it does a great job of showing that the consequences of war don’t just affect soldiers, but also a demographic that’s missing from many games: the citizens caught in the crossfire.

Wartime Prejudices Complicate Relationships in Alekhine’s Gun

There’s a reason that war is popular as a setting for games: it’s exciting, it typically allows for a simple division of good guys versus bad guys, and it provides a combat situation that doesn’t require characterizing the player as a villain to excuse it. But the good versus evil conflict can get a little overused, so some games venture outside this tired dichotomy.

Alekhine’s Gun is one game that plays with concepts of good and evil to great results. The game does take place in wartime, but during the Cold War, which focused less on combat and more on political relations as the United States and U.S.S.R. tried to one-up one another’s technological advancements. In Alekhine’s Gun, much like in the Cold War, there’s no clear division between right and wrong. Instead, Agent Alekhine, the player character, is a KGB counterintelligence agent in service of the CIA working to eradicate a larger problem: an anti-government conspiracy that threatens the tenuous peace.

Rather than paint one country as evil and another as good, this approach to war games centralizes the conflict elsewhere and explores wartime prejudices off the battlefield. As a foreign agency recruit, Alekhine has to deal with suspicion and distrust from fellow CIA operatives, despite his dedication to the cause—a unique approach that shows how black and white mentalities about enemies hinder progress.

Getting Creative in the War Game Genre

War games don’t have to follow a particular formula, and these three games show how conflict doesn’t require cut-and-dried concepts of good and evil, but can instead show the catastrophic effects of war on everybody involved. Through humanizing characters on all sides, telling the story from the perspective of civilians, and exploring the tension created by working with the so-called enemy, Valiant Hearts, This War of Mine, and Alekhine’s Gun all tackle the morality of telling a good war story in their own unique, engaging ways.

Alekhine’s Gun puts you in the shoes of a KGB assassin working alongside the CIA for an entirely new view of one of the most fascinating eras of history. Now available for PC or console!