War Mongrels Preview – New Game Shows Hell of Death Camps

World War II is a particularly tricky theme. On the one hand, it's ideal to create a less (Wolfenstein) or more (Call of Duty) realistic "simulators" of soldier, or just good strategy games – on the other, developers completely avoid talking about things like the Holocaust (which, many would argue, isn't a theme for video games). When I visited Destructive Creations I had a general idea that the creators are going up the stream again, but I couldn't have suspected just how literal the devs had decided to be. In the studio, in which the view outside the window was dominated by a radio tower reaching almost 400 feet, I saw War Mongrels – a game that might as well be called Commandos 4, if the owner of the rights to this iconic franchise would agree to publish a game, where Jewish prisoners are executed over a mass grave, and one of the levels includes a visit to a concentration camp.

War Mongrels surprises from the first minutes on. We would expect that in this kind of a game, based on the famous Commandos, would let players take control of soldiers who specialize in clandestine operations behind enemy lines, but it's the exact opposite. The eponymous Mongrels are a collection of random people of different nationalities, who at first glance do not display a knack for special tasks and, well, go together like ice cream and pickles.

The story begins with Ewald Faber and Manfred Raufer, two Wehrmacht soldiers sent on duty to a penal battalion for disobeying orders. During a mission that has them mining the area, their unit becomes the target of shelling by Russian artillery, which, after breaking the German offensive, continues westward. Both men take the opportunity to escape and, with the help of deserters, begin a perilous journey to Gdansk, Manfred's hometown.

In the studio, we saw the second of the twelve missions of the single player campaign, which takes place in the village of Ponary, today one of the districts of Lithuanian capital city, Vilnius. Ewald and Manfred stop there to get fuel for the motorcycle and thus be able to reach the great escape from the Eastern Front. However, when they arrive, it quickly turns out the city it is overrun by German forces, who perpetrate the atrocities described in the introduction – this is where the game really begins.

PONARY

If ever read about Nazi German war crimes, the name Ponary certainly rings a bell. For over three years, the village was used as execution grounds for the Jews from the nearby Vilnius. The exact number of people killed there is not exactly known, as during the last phase of World War 2, the oppressors opened mass graves and burned the bodies. Estimates suggest between 80,000 to 100,000 people of different nationalities may have been slaughtered in Ponary.

The mission in Ponary actually consists of several different, though strongly intertwined, episodes. In the first one, Ewald and Manfred focus solely on obtaining supplies. Shots can be constantly heard in the background, which the gentlemen point out in their conversations, but it doesn't make them lose any sleep either, because getting fuel and food is the only thing they care about. Hunting for separated groups of soldiers, they finally reach a barn where Lukas – a member of the Vilnius branch of the Home Army – is locked in an ambush. After the guerilla fighter is released, we are given access to another piece of the map, where we finally learn the cause of the constant shooting. A train stands near the village, and Jews are led out of cattle wagons, and moments later executed at the threshold of a mass grave. With a bullet in the head.

Destructive Creations isn't famous for taking prisoners, to put it mildly, and War Mongrels further solidifies this statement. So the game portrays German war crimes, and that the developers from Gliwice would not be themselves if they didn't show these crimes in detail, and we can expect similar explicit imagery more often than once. The crime in Ponary is just a prelude, as the developers want to also include a visit to a concentration camp in the game, during a mission that requires extracting a Jewish prisoner. I won't tell you anything else, but believe me, this game has loads more.

Commando Desperados

The above description should give you a good idea of what you're going to be dealing with, so now let's focus on how it plays. War Mongrels is simply a spiritual heir of the Commandos series, drawing heavily from the solutions used in the cult classics and the recently released games Shadow Tactics and Desperados III. The similarities to the last two games are particularly pronounced, but I wouldn't take that as a disadvantage. Destructive Creations comments briefly: We do not reinvent the wheel, and if certain solutions are good, we simply take advantage of them.

The heroes available in a given mission (besides Manfred and Ewald, there will also be five other individuals) are controlled in the traditional way, and we're directing them across the map and giving them orders, of course in real time. Each character has abilities not available to others, and there's a typical set – different ways for distracting and luring enemies with objects, setting traps, dressing up in German uniforms, etc. The bodies of slain opponents can be hidden in various spots, and vegetation provides limited cover from the sight of guards. The game is centered around acting from the shadows, systematically eliminating guards standing on our way. You can kill them quietly, there are executions with environment, as well as a tactical mode straight from Mimimi games, where you can plan actions for several characters to be executed simultaneously. In short, all the pieces of the puzzle this genre needs.

The distinguishing feature of War Mongrels will certainly be the combat mode. If we activate it, our soldiers will automatically lay covering fire at the enemies, which will often allow us to escape a hot situation if we make a mistake. Of course, an open exchange isn't the favorable solution, but our team of outcasts isn't harmless in open battle. Artificial intelligence behavior in case of such skirmishes requires a lot of work from the developers, but the solutions we've seen warrant hopes for satisfying mechanics. The system works pretty well.

The combat mode is also meant as an incentive for players who want to diversify the experience with a more direct approach. War Mongrels, however, will never turn into a typical Hatred shootout, as the company – though well-armed – isn't big and hasn't got bucket loads of ammo. Ammunition found in the game fits specific types of weapons. You certainly won't be able to complete the entire game in a Rambo kind of warfare, but there should be some opportunities to do that. If, of course, someone wants to do it, because it will always be optional.

Also interesting is the developers' plan to create a model of continuous gameplay that would not require the player to repeatedly save the game. What they're trying to develop is a system that rewinds the game a few seconds if you die, allowing the player to quickly repeat an attempt. It's not quite certain whether the system will ultimately make it into the game, but the prototype seems promising. I find this solution to make a lot of sense because one of the things that irritated me the most in Desperados III was that the game constantly reminded me to save the game, and I had to browse the options to turn it off.

What does it look like?

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the game was the way it looks and sounds – War Mongrels looks really, really good. Realistic graphics intensify the emotions and underline the horrific scenes we witness, and the music, changing with each situation, provides the right backdrop and keeps it intense.

The animations look very polished (even though the game is isometric, all the animations were done in mo-cap), and the voice acting is top-notch. The characters not only comment what they see, but also argue among themselves – after all, when one team includes former Wehrmacht soldiers, Jews and Poles from the Home Army, conflicts will come out of the bushes and bite your ankles. It is worth to add that all characters other than those led by the player speak their native languages, German, Russians, etc. Our team speaks English – the cast actually includes Doug Cockle, known to gamers as the voice of the witcher Geralt of Rivia. An anecdote is that the people from DC didn't actually know this when hiring him.

To wrap it all up, I must admit I am very excited about this game, for several reasons. First, because it's without a doubt the best game by Destructive Creations in terms of production values and it already looks itself very well. Not only is it pretty, but it also sounds great and has well-crafted, well-conceived gameplay, which I, as a fan of the genre, particularly appreciate.

Second, it addresses a part of history generally overlooked in electronic entertainment. Of course, we have to be aware that the studio is famous for rather infamous ideas, but I think it's different here. As epic as fighting Nazism may sound, the Second World War was the most terrible event in modern history, entailing the suffering of hundreds of millions of people treated and butchered like animals. Mongrels don't skip the inconvenient bits and aren't afraid of difficult questions. To the contrary; we face these head-on right at the beginning, and stay in this nightmare till the end. Fun gameplay, yes, but the gravity of the subject matter is way beyond anything you can experience in the mainstream. It's Spec Ops on steroids, not the pompous Call of Duty.

As such, it could also be a valuable history lesson for anyone, to whom the name Auschwitz sounds like just another place. This isn't a game that will cheer you up. The developers used historical consulting to make sure that everything they depict is factual and based on sources and acknowledged facts. The same diligence was exhibited with all the other items we find in the game. The concentration camp will be based on real blueprints, the cars will look like those from the epoch, and the cattle cars used to transport people have been properly rendered. When it comes to points of reference, this game is hellishly realistic.

I don't think Destructive Creations' previous projects have been outstanding, I'm neither a big fan of Hatred nor the Ancestors Legacy. War Mongrels, however, is the type of game that makes me want to buy it right now, and it may help the studio finally get the recognition of a big-time player. I have loved this genre since the first Commandos, I like the way this game looks now, and I am delighted with the completely uncompromising attitude of the developers in their approach to the subject, because this is the kind of a game about World War 2 that we really need. I'm keeping my fingers crossed as much as I've never done before.