Valiant Hearts: The Great War

78%
Game Brain Score Based on 13,774 reviews
  • story
  • emotional
  • gameplay
Valiant Hearts: The Great War Game Cover
A refreshing slant at the handling of a tough subject, Valiant hearts is touching and poignant WWI game.
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Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a moving narrative-driven adventure game set in World War I. Control four interconnected characters as they navigate the brutalities of war and personal loss in this stylistic, emotional experience. Solve puzzles and engage with historical events and figures in this unique take on the traditional adventure game.

  • iPad
  • iPhone
  • Nintendo Switch
  • PC
  • Phone
  • Play​station 4
  • Play​station 5
  • Windows
  • Xbox One
  • Xbox Series X|S
  • Mobile Platform
  • Play​Station
  • Play​station 3
  • Xbox
  • Xbox 360
Genres & TagsPlay Modes

Reviews

78%
Audience ScoreBased on 13,774 reviews
story4,304 positive mentions
replayability22 negative mentions
  • story8,249 mentions

    The story of "Valiant Hearts: The Great War" is widely praised for its emotional depth and historical accuracy, following the intertwined lives of four characters during World War I. Players are drawn into a poignant narrative that highlights the human cost of war, complemented by beautiful artwork and a moving soundtrack. While the gameplay is simple and sometimes repetitive, the compelling storytelling and character development make it a memorable experience that resonates with players long after completion.

    • “Deep and accurate WWI story with emotional narrative; the soundtrack intensifies the emotional weight of the story, leaving a lasting impact and immersing me fully with just one playthrough.”
    • “Each puzzle, each letter, each memory uncovered draws you deeper into a story that makes you reflect on the fragility of life.”
    • “It's not just a game you play; it's a story you feel.”
    • “However, the episodic structure can sometimes break immersion, as you jump between different story arcs.”
    • “Once you’ve completed the story and collected the historical artifacts, there’s little incentive to replay the game.”
    • “The gameplay is the way in which you interact with the story and characters within the world.”
  • emotional2,871 mentions

    The emotional aspect of "Valiant Hearts: The Great War" is widely praised for its powerful storytelling and ability to evoke deep feelings in players. Many reviews highlight the game's heart-wrenching narrative, which follows the intertwined lives of characters during World War I, often leading to tears by the end. The combination of beautiful visuals, a poignant soundtrack, and relatable character experiences creates a lasting emotional impact, making it a memorable and touching experience for players.

    • “This game is an emotional roller coaster and an amazing experience.”
    • “The combination of visuals, soundtrack, and emotional storytelling pulls you into the world, making you feel the weight of the war and the characters' personal struggles.”
    • “The story is... heart-breaking to say the least.”
  • gameplay2,837 mentions

    The gameplay of "Valiant Hearts: The Great War" is primarily focused on puzzle-solving and exploration, featuring simple mechanics that serve to enhance the emotional narrative rather than challenge players with complexity. While many reviews praise the engaging story and beautiful art style, they also note that the gameplay can feel repetitive and lacks depth, often relying on straightforward puzzles and quick-time events. Overall, the game is recommended for its storytelling and emotional impact, making it a worthwhile experience despite its simplistic gameplay.

    • “The gameplay revolves around puzzle-solving, exploration, and occasional action sequences.”
    • “The gameplay, while simple, serves the story well, and the visuals, music, and atmosphere create a powerful emotional impact.”
    • “Gameplay is a balanced mix of puzzles and action, with well-designed challenges that are satisfying without being overly complex.”
    • “The 'digging' mechanic was such bs and sucked the joy out of the game for me.”
    • “I found the game consistently underwhelming: the characters are bland and generally lack personality; the story does a poor job balancing a generic plot with the heavy themes of the real-world conflict; and while gameplay was forgiving, some of the puzzle/event sequences in the latter half of the game were tedious.”
    • “The gameplay is repetitive and boring.”
  • graphics2,483 mentions

    The graphics of "Valiant Hearts: The Great War" are widely praised for their unique hand-drawn, cartoonish art style, which effectively contrasts with the serious themes of World War I. Reviewers highlight the game's ability to convey deep emotional narratives through its visuals, creating an immersive experience that enhances the storytelling. While some players note that the simplistic graphics may not appeal to everyone, many agree that the art style is integral to the game's charm and emotional impact.

    • “The hand-drawn, cartoonish visuals contrast sharply with the grim subject matter, creating a unique and memorable aesthetic.”
    • “From the muddy trenches to bombed-out villages, the visuals perfectly complement the game's emotional tone, making the world feel alive and immersive.”
    • “The combination of visuals, soundtrack, and emotional storytelling pulls you into the world, making you feel the weight of the war and the characters' personal struggles.”
    • “I refuse to accept that this is part of the art style – you guys could do much better than that!”
    • “The graphics might seem too childish at first, but their humor acts as a necessary detachment from the otherwise overwhelmingly brutal realities of war that the game conveys.”
    • “Watching the game's graphics makes me feel bored and I want to stop playing the game; I had to force myself to get through most of the game.”
  • music2,475 mentions

    The music in "Valiant Hearts: The Great War" is widely praised for its emotional depth and ability to enhance the storytelling experience. Reviewers highlight the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack, which features a mix of piano pieces and classical compositions that perfectly complement the game's visuals and narrative, creating a powerful emotional impact. The integration of music with gameplay, particularly during driving sequences synchronized to classical pieces, adds a unique and engaging layer to the overall experience, making it a standout aspect of the game.

    • “The soundtrack is an emotional mix of piano pieces and classical compositions, with sound effects that perfectly complement the game’s style.”
    • “The combination of visuals, soundtrack, and emotional storytelling pulls you into the world, making you feel the weight of the war and the characters' personal struggles.”
    • “The music is also incredibly moving and complements the story perfectly.”
    • “The game breaking bug I hit was apparently caused by (either? both?) music syncing issues and resolution causing an arrow to not display on the screen for a boss fight, so I got stuck, unable to defeat the boss ever.”
    • “Imo this story is bad, it's silly and all over the place, and the music doesn't help.”
    • “But the worst thing about the game is 'musical' parts between some chapters.”
  • atmosphere464 mentions

    The atmosphere of "Valiant Hearts" is widely praised for its immersive and gripping portrayal of World War I, enhanced by meticulous hand-drawn art, a haunting soundtrack, and emotional storytelling. Players appreciate how the game effectively combines historical facts with a somber yet beautiful ambiance, creating a powerful emotional impact that resonates throughout the gameplay. While some find the puzzles simplistic, the overall atmosphere and narrative depth make it a memorable experience.

    • “The game’s atmosphere is gripping and immersive.”
    • “The hand-drawn art style and hauntingly beautiful soundtrack enhance the experience, perfectly capturing the era's atmosphere.”
    • “The addition of real life facts spread throughout the game to connect the game to World War I and diary entries kept the atmosphere extremely immersive.”
    • “Nice try at the atmosphere, but still rather boring.”
    • “Those relics are sometimes placed in the middle of the action, and instead of paying attention to the gameplay or to the plot itself, you're focused on looking at the background not to miss a relic (while dodging bombs or running to save somebody's life) and this sometimes pulls you out from the atmosphere of the game.”
    • “If the puzzles had been taken more seriously, the atmosphere would not have been as weak as it was.”
  • humor226 mentions

    The humor in the game is described as a blend of light-hearted moments and dark comedy, effectively juxtaposing the serious themes of war with whimsical elements, such as cartoonish art and quirky character interactions. Players appreciate the clever use of humor in gameplay and dialogue, which elicits genuine laughter while also delivering emotional depth. Overall, the game manages to balance its comedic aspects with poignant storytelling, making it both entertaining and thought-provoking.

    • “Games rarely achieve a balance of light-hearted humor with the horrors of war and still come out serious and memorable.”
    • “What genuinely amazes me even more is that even though this game is mostly very sad, they were able to add some genuinely hilarious comedic moments and make it work!”
    • “Valiant Hearts is a mixture of feelings: sometimes you will giggle at the hilarious chases rigged by classic music, then the plot will make you thoughtful for a while and by the end you will be crying like a little girl.”
    • “The ending is definitely not funny, which is something unexpected.”
    • “But frankly speaking, although this game tells a good story, it is not funny as it is supposed to be.”
    • “The war is not funny, it's not amazing, it's not a game.”
  • replayability112 mentions

    Overall, the game has low replayability, primarily due to its linear structure and straightforward puzzles, which many players find easy to solve. While there are collectibles that may entice completionists or achievement hunters to replay, the general consensus is that the game is best experienced once for its story and emotional impact. Despite its limited replay value, players still recommend it for its engaging narrative and unique historical context.

    • “Great replayability if you are an achievement hunter as well.”
    • “There are items to collect and things to read as you move through the game too, which will give this game at least one more playthrough if not more replayability.”
    • “Surprisingly enough for this style of a game, there is a lot of action, and many collectibles throughout the game as well, which adds replay value for those achievement hunters out there.”
    • “This is one of those 100% linear games with no replay value; the PC version doesn’t have achievements either.”
    • “The only con is that I found the game to have little replay value (unless you are a collector), and it's quite short.”
    • “The game is only 6 hours long and has virtually no replay value.”
  • grinding106 mentions

    The grinding aspect of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players finding the gameplay and puzzles to be tedious and repetitive, particularly in the latter stages. While some appreciated the narrative and character development, the overall sentiment suggests that the game often requires excessive backtracking and simple puzzle-solving that can feel monotonous. Overall, players noted that the grinding experience detracted from their enjoyment, leading to frustration rather than engagement.

    • “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
    • “A bit grindy sometimes.”
    • “I don't really like puzzles, and I don't really care for stories that often, but the blend is just right so the puzzles weren't too tedious, the story was a perfect vehicle for the theme and the educational extras were a good side benefit.”
    • “The only thing that I didn't like is that towards the end it started to feel tedious and got frustrating at some points.”
    • “My experience with this game was a slow tedious agony.”
    • “It's a tedious back and forth, running from point A to point B to deliver an obvious solution to an obvious puzzle.”
  • stability76 mentions

    The game has been widely criticized for its numerous bugs and glitches, which significantly impact gameplay and progression. While some players noted that these issues were minor or tolerable, many expressed frustration with the frequency and severity of the problems, leading to a general consensus that the game's stability is lacking. Despite these technical shortcomings, some reviewers still appreciated the overall experience, suggesting that the game's narrative and style could outweigh its stability issues for certain players.

    • “No glitches, stuttering, or crashes encountered.”
    • “It is not buggy at all.”
    • “The game runs smoothly without any issues.”
    • “Releasing buggy games is not ok.”
    • “The game is also subject to glitches and bugs, getting stuck, death, etc.”
    • “I experienced many bugs, glitches and crashes but thankfully, the game saves pretty often and is very well spaced in-between for checkpoints.”
  • character development56 mentions

    Character development in the game receives mixed reviews, with many praising its depth and emotional resonance, particularly through strong storytelling and character design. However, some critics feel that character arcs are underdeveloped or overly reliant on external narration, detracting from player immersion. Overall, while there are standout elements, several reviewers believe that more effort could have significantly enhanced the emotional impact of the characters.

    • “Great storytelling and deep character development.”
    • “I haven't seen a better job of storytelling and character development done by any game in the past few years, which when you consider the characters mostly communicate in pictures or by grunting at each other is pretty bloody impressive.”
    • “Another good thing I enjoyed was the character development; they flesh out each character's background and how that affects their reactions to everything during the war.”
    • “Nearly all of the character development in this game, something that I thought would be its strong suit, is handled by the omniscient narrator, rather than the characters themselves.”
    • “To make the rather bland character development worse, I find it extremely disappointing how much content there is in this game that serves to remove the player from immersion.”
    • “Character development is next to nil in a game focused on four potentially strong primary characters, and their own arcs really only move forward when you take yourself out of the game, navigate a menu, open their diaries, and wrestle the controls to allow you to read them in the correct order.”
  • optimization40 mentions

    The game is highly praised for its optimization, running smoothly on a wide range of systems, including low-end PCs, with consistent 60 fps and no noticeable bugs or performance issues. Reviewers noted flawless performance and low system requirements, making it accessible even for older laptops. Overall, the optimization is considered excellent, although some users mentioned minor areas for improvement.

    • “The game runs smoothly on a wide range of systems, with no noticeable bugs or performance issues.”
    • “It’s optimized well for both low and high-end PCs, ensuring a consistent 60 fps even on modest hardware setups.”
    • “The game is optimized to work with an amazingly large variety of computers and installations.”
    • “If it's on sale, such as 80%, it may fit the price-performance ratio; otherwise, not recommended.”
    • “Although some things could be optimized, I totally recommend this game!”
    • “Its a simple rhythm game with a bandage that will get progressively more or less bloody based on your performance.”
  • monetization4 mentions

    The monetization model of "Might & Magic: Duel of Champions," a free-to-play game with microtransactions, has drawn criticism due to its abrupt closure, which not only removed the game from stores but also erased player achievements and statistics, raising concerns about the value and permanence of player investments in such titles.

    • “A more serious case was that of Might & Magic: Duel of Champions, a free-to-play game with microtransactions, whose closure not only removed the game from stores but also erased achievements and statistics from accounts, rendering important player information inaccessible.”
    • “An art game with a message or a cash grab?”
Positive mentions (%)Positive
Neutral mentions (%)Neutral
Negative mentions (%)Negative

Critic Reviews

78% average critic score

Buy Valiant Hearts: The Great War

Play time

8hMedian play time
7hAverage play time
7hMain story
9hCompletionist
6-10hSpent by most gamers
*Based on 78 analyzed playthroughs

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