On brave heart, how powerful is a strong heart?

"Great War" can refer to World War I or literally, and can be used to describe the greatness of ordinary soldiers in this war.

It doesn't matter whether this book should be translated into Braveheart: World War (official translation) or Braveheart: World War. After all, "Great War" can be used to describe the greatness of ordinary soldiers in this war. But it seems that it has been called brave heart. Ubisoft, a 2D adventure game made by Ubisoft engine, turned its attention from World War II, which was copied by the game industry too many times, to World War I, which was rarely involved. For works that didn't want to dwell too much on complex narratives in the past, World War II, where the distinction between good and evil was relatively clear, provided an ideal game background. Just like Sniper Elite 3, players only need to enjoy the thrill of bullets tearing each other's bodies when they snipe Hitler again and again, and do not need to think too much about this behavior and the war itself. In other words, players are completely numb to the background version of the war. Faced with the lack of a clear distinction between good and evil, the media of games will certainly face the problem of how to deal with its complexity. This is both a challenge and an opportunity: if the violent structure continues, the game will easily become the mouthpiece of war and get lost in the relatively subjective narrative structure; If we get rid of the shackles of the simple concept of good and evil and the design logic of releasing pressure by violence, the game can describe in detail the various parts that make up the war, make full use of its interactive advantages, and more truly reflect the essence of a war and the profound disasters it has brought to all aspects of mankind through various details such as weapons, weapons, soldiers and battles.

The description of World War I in Brave Heart: World War I jumped out of the previous games, and presented an excellent work for us to truly reflect on war and violence with timely multi-line narration, rich game mode mix and match, and natural accumulation and transmission of emotions. The most rare thing is that in the whole game process, although the violent elements cannot be completely avoided due to the limitation of the theme, the producer Ubisoft Montpellier Studio still tried its best to avoid all the death scenes caused by the players. This extreme restraint seems to be easy, but in fact it is consistent with the core idea of the whole work: opposing violence while showing the bloody cruelty of war.

The main story line of Braveheart unfolds with four clues: First, in 2004, with the assassination of Crown Prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo (known as the Sarajevo incident in history), World War I broke out. Karl, a German living in France, was deported, forced to leave his wife Mary and his son Victor, and was forcibly recruited as a member of the German army, eventually serving under the German officer Baron von Dolph. Secondly, Mary's father Emile, Karl's father-in-law, was forcibly recruited by the French army. Third, Eddie volunteered to join the French army, because his new wife died in the bombing under the command of Baron von Doff. Fourthly, Anna, a Belgian girl, embarked on the road to save her father because her scientist father was kidnapped by Baron von doffer.

Four people of different nationalities, colors and races were involved in the war. Emil and Eddie became close friends in the battle. In the process of tracking Baron von Doff, they met Anna and successfully shot down led zeppelin who was driven by Baron. Unfortunately, Carl was captured, but he managed to escape from prison. He returned to the village under the attack of chlorine gas and saved Mary and Victor's life in time. His life was in danger, but fortunately, he was saved by Anna. Emile and Eddie finally defeated the baron after a lot of hardships. However, in 19 17, the emir fought back and was accidentally injured and killed. He was finally dealt with by military law, and after witnessing the French officers insisting on commanding the troops to rush to the German artillery regardless of the soldiers' lives, he sacrificed himself.

The narrative of Braveheart extends from 19 14 to 19 17, which lasted for four years and contained the whole war between the outbreak of World War I and the United States' participation in the war (see the last cut-and-paste animation between the two staff lists after the game was cleared). Through the experiences of four main figures belonging to the two armies and the dogs of World War I, several major battles between the Allies and the Allies in the Western Front in World War I (the Battle of Marne, the Second Battle of Ipsos, the Battle of Reims, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Verdun, the Battle of Vimy Ridge, and the Second Battle).

Because of their different identities, their story lines show different parts of the war. The story line of Emile and Eddie mainly focuses on the battle, depicting the arms race and desperate struggle between the two sides in the war; As a prisoner of war, Carl's story line mainly describes the life, escape and escape process of prisoners of war; As a battlefield nurse, Anna's story line focuses on saving people before and after the front line. Although the four chapters of the game are divided into Eddie, Emile, Anna and Carl according to the main characters in this chapter, the scenes of the four characters are staggered in each chapter, and flashback (for example, after led zeppelin crashed, Anna's story origin was introduced instead), interlude (between Carl's loss of consciousness due to poison gas and being rescued by Anna, Emile accidentally killed someone on the way to a lady) and double-line alternate narration (Duomon fortress in Verdun Battle) are widely used.

Although the main story of the game is completely linear, the collection outside the main story greatly expands the information contained in this work, supplemented by diaries of four characters and historical materials corresponding to each story of the game, so that players can have an overall understanding of World War I and master a lot of details through this game. The collection in Brave Heart is directly related to the main line of the story and the war situation in each chapter. The historical materials in each chapter will introduce the battle, the weapons used in the battle, the duration of the battle, the number of casualties, the characteristics of the battle, or the wartime production and living conditions behind the front line by means of pictures supplemented by text introduction, while the collection will be carried out on the basis of historical materials, leading to specific items to describe the war in detail.

For example, the second battle of ypres, the first gas war in human history. In the chapter corresponding to this war, Emil can collect a mask soaked in urine. In the description of this episode, players will know that the British army (mainly Canadian soldiers who participated in the war at that time) did not have gas masks as a response to the German gas offensive, and the only mask they could use to resist chlorine gas invasion was this one. Urine will react with chlorine to generate slightly toxic substances, so as to prevent chlorine from reacting with water in the body to generate hydrochloric acid (2Cl2+2H2O2=4HCL+O2) that burns the lungs and eyes. The addition of the goods system has completely changed the significance of the collection system to the game, and changed this system from a system that prolongs the perfect customs clearance time to a system in which players want to know more about the details of World War I after feeling the main story and are very interested in completing it on their own initiative. Through the items related to the battle, soldiers and people's lives in the rear, the game's description of World War I jumped out of the imprisonment of serious expression of historical materials and went deep into the details. Worldview scattered all over the game, explored and pieced together by players, is only the superficial feature of nonlinear narrative. Behind it is the logic that players are no longer forced to read, and the decision to understand the story is given to the players, that is, the control of the game is selectively and partially abandoned at the narrative level. This non-linear narrative mode can minimize the sense of constraint brought by the usual narrative mode to the players, and at the same time stimulate the players' desire to explore and interest in the story to the greatest extent, which is really a wonderful move for a work with such a heavy theme.

Under the guidance of the main framework of adventure game, Brave Heart not only introduces traditional puzzle solving, platform action, shooting, diving, QTE and other game modes, but also adds a war dog to the human role operated by the player to expand the complexity of the puzzle solving part of the platform. Mix and match is easy, but integration is difficult. If you can't distinguish between multiple game modes, it is easy to confuse players in too many operation switches. To analyze the harmony between various game modes in Brave Heart, we need to return to the question of why multi-protagonist is rarely used in puzzle games. The most important system in traditional puzzle solving game is prop system. The protagonist picks up countless rags at various positions of the level and combines them in his own unique way to solve the mystery of the level setting. The premise of all this is that players have a space to put props, whether it is called prop bar or treasure chest, this space is essential. However, in the multi-protagonist narrative mode, it is necessary to construct multiple sets of props, which are not universal because of the limitations of the story. In the face of similar puzzles, we should design another kind of props with different appearances and similar functions. On the one hand, it brings redundancy to the system, on the other hand, it also limits the reuse scene of the same prop.

In some classic puzzle games, props can be used from the beginning to the end, and different functions of props can be used in different puzzles. See the crowbar you can get at the beginning of the scene in broken arrow: The Mystery of the Templar. The four-character system limits the existence of the prop system, so Brave Heart completely cancels the almost necessary prop combination system in puzzle games, and each character can carry at most one prop. In order to make up for the large number of turnbacks and design restrictions caused by this, war dogs are of great use. It can hold anything given by the player in its mouth and keep moving. In addition, the fighting dog also played a similar role in the process of solving puzzles, which liberated the thinking of the level designer. Man-dog cooperation runs through the level design of the whole game. The neutrality of the fighting dog allows it to perform some tasks that humans cannot complete, such as entering enemy-occupied areas or dangerous areas. At the same time, it also brings some restrictions to its action: for example, it is not allowed to climb ladders. How to solve puzzles with war dogs has become an important factor for players to consider. War dog, a game element that combines the dual identities of props and characters, is a brand-new design created by the producer on the combination of platform action and traditional puzzle solving. Throughout the level design of the whole game, the resulting highlights abound.

The four protagonists have different ways of playing: most of the levels between Eddie and Emil are battles, and players need to break through the enemy's defense by various means while avoiding the enemy's attacks, supplemented by quick reaction events, battery shooting, tank operation and exciting head battles. Rapid response events have the fastest rhythm, and there are relatively few here; Battery shooting is another way to solve puzzles: according to the subject matter, ranging car or sound prompt, determine the position of enemy battery for shelling; The leader war further tests the comprehensive ability of players to solve puzzles and platform actions under limited time conditions. Carl's level is more similar to the dive of "Hidden Dragon Bourne", but in order to adapt to the adventure mode of "2D Scroll", Jeancard completes the dive by dividing the foreground and background. Anna's level introduces a quick response event game to treat patients, a wonderful car chase level and a car chase leader battle.

Montpellier's studio has done its utmost to absorb the advantages of its own works. Car-chasing checkpoints are the last tradition inherited from the first battle of Lehman: Origin. The checkpoint design has the rhythm of music, but the horizontal platform action is changed to the vertical car-chasing of the third person, and the excitement brought by cheerful music and passionate rhythm is perfectly reused. The most exciting part of the level design of the whole game is the close combination with the history of World War I: in the two chapters involved in the second ypres campaign, players need to avoid poison gas; The emir who has the ability to dig needs to face the shells scattered in the soil; In the Battle of Victoria's Secret Ridge, players can operate the tanks that the British army put into actual combat for the first time in human history; In Battle of the Ram, players have to face led zeppelin, who caused heavy casualties to the Allies as a German bomber in World War I.

The level design that fits history and respects historical facts allows players to experience the real process of the war at that time, and also makes the game still have a considerable sense of weight under the incomplete realistic comic style, which also gives the game itself a strong vitality and bridges the gap between the game story and the real history of mankind. Brave Heart pays attention to the coordination of gameplay and emotional expression at the design level, which also lays the foundation for the excellent emotional transmission and expression of the game.

We finally reached the core of the game Braveheart: emotional transmission. As a work with the theme of World War I, Brave Heart is facing great challenges. Of course, World War I provided a very rich theme for the game script, and it also challenged the script itself on how to treat and express the war. Condemning the war is the proper meaning in the title, but if you can't put it into the actual game experience, you will eventually put forward a vague idea that can't attract people's attention. Brave Heart chose an extremely ingenious, of course, perhaps the only way to deal with it: from small to large, through the adventures of four ordinary people and a dog, the war runs through, and they use their life experiences to silently accuse the harm that the war has brought to mankind. The setting of several protagonists is very subtle: the combination of the German son-in-law and the French father-in-law just makes the nationals of the Allies and Allies become a family, plus the Americans who traveled across the ocean full of revenge and anger, and the Belgian female nurse who fell first in World War I, * * * together formed this international team. In fact, Baron von Doff, the most faceless villain in this game, is just a * * * target that brings four people together. Most of the descriptions of the war in the game don't use this villain. As the oldest of the four, Emil's reflection on the war mainly exists in his story line. In a mine in Vokios, Emil rescued a German soldier trapped in a falling rock, and later he helped him avoid being questioned by two German soldiers. But after completing the task, the German soldiers in the whole tunnel, including the one who helped each other before, were killed in the explosion. Looking at the soldiers beside him intoxicated with victory, Emil silently bowed his head. If this is only the first event that shakes the Amir's will, then Carl's death after trying to escape in the prison camp has intensified his doubts about the justice of this war. In the second battle of the Aina River, the French commander completely ignored the soldiers' lives and forced the tired and sick soldiers to move forward with heavy artillery fire, which became the last straw to crush him. Emil's outstanding achievements in previous battles are in sharp contrast with his ultimate fate, weakening the positions of both sides in the fighting, but pointing out the absurdity and cruelty of the war itself. It is worth mentioning that during the whole game, no one showed his eyes until Carl woke up from the hospital. Only in this way can players see Victor's eyes. Perhaps this setting has placed expectations on a new generation. In addition to the main story, there are diaries of five characters (four operable characters and Mary), who are also responsible for conveying emotions. These diaries describe the characters' reactions to their own experiences and those of other characters. Here, we must mention the dubbing of Braveheart. Although the whole speech is not realized (the characters will only make vague sounds in the actual operation of the game), the characters in the diary and the edited animation have been dubbed. The dubbing of Brave Heart is not too dramatic compared with the silent editing in Children of Light, but it greatly improves the performance effect with heavy and true feelings.

After Ubisoft and Ubisoft restarted the Lehman series, it was keenly aware of the eternal potential of 2D games in the new generation. As a big factory, Ubisoft has continuously invested in making such non-3A-level games, which not only won the respect of the industry, but also brought such excellent products as Brave Heart to players. There is a natural contradiction between comic adventure games and the serious theme of World War I, but from this work, we can see Montpellier's creative exploration outside the framework of traditional adventure games, his efforts to absorb other excellent works in the industry, and most importantly, his courage to touch the real world and expose the historical truth.

Although the word "entertainment" is no different from jokes, it doesn't mean that the media of the game is still a little high: the art form must always stay in the plot of fighting monsters or aliens (Kojima Kangyu). There are too many fields and themes that the game has not explored and touched. How to deal with these themes in what form is the problem of game mode and level design, while how to narrate and how to convey emotions and thoughts is another theme. I hope Braveheart is just the beginning, and I hope Montpellier Studio will continue to bring this excellent work with interest, knowledge and creativity to players.