Do green herbs work for trench foot?
“Are we fucked?”
What a keen misery is it to realise it’s me rushing for aid - not the rotting horse corpses or the shell-shocked shaking in silent corners - that tips him off to encroaching disaster. I suppose spending so long in hell means gradual adjustments in temperature don’t really register.
Not quite threadless, granted. You’ll find maps - good ones at that - marking not just locked doors but specifics. Notes tell you which keys for which doors, or where certain puzzles you’ll want to return to are. But disorientation and danger still arise from dense, claustrophic interiors and how regularly areas repopulate with enemies after progression points. Here’s a minor heresy for purists: you can’t really avoid the vast majority of combat encounters here. You can sometimes, slipping into designated spots to wait out a passing patrol. Most of the time, though, you’re going to be glad you kept a designated inventory slot for spare bullets.
I fought off said patrols with a controller. Left trigger to aim, right to fire, with crosshairs that focus the longer you steady your shot. Pistols are relatively weak but offer the advantage of not having to chamber every shot like the more effective rifle, and these minor points of interruption feel both authentic and pant-pissingly tense in the middle of a fight. We’re not made of bullets though, soldier, so you’d better get acquainted with the ancient and noble art of swinging a spade at a man’s skull.
There are salves. Terse, gallows-humour fortified conversations and opportunities to help your comrades by giving away precious items. The search for your wounded brother, made poignant through flashbacks that don’t need to lay on the sentiment, since just being away from the trenches for a little while is enough to evoke relief and comfort. One chapter opens up to a combat-less journey through devastated countryside - a well-placed show of confidence in an atmosphere of threat and trepidation to sustain itself when the bullets stop flying.
This review is based on a review build of the game provided by the developer.
