Valiant Hearts: The Great War came out in 2014, and 12 years later it remains a puzzle adventure about the First World War from Ubisoft Montpellier. The studio’s stated goal was to help players remember the war during its centenary. It does not ask you to shoot anyone. It asks you to keep walking.
That restraint is the whole argument of the game, and it mostly works.
Trailer, via AllGamesBeta.
Emile, Karl, Freddie and Anna
Valiant Hearts follows four people whose lives cross as the war grinds on. Emile is a French farmer, drafted into the French Army and thrown into combat at the Battle of the Frontiers. Karl is his German son-in-law, deported from France, separated from his wife Marie and their son Victor, and drafted into the German Army. Freddie is an American who volunteered for the French army after his wife was killed in a German bombing raid. Anna is a Belgian veterinary student who works as a battlefield nurse.
The game moves between them, and the crossing is the point. Emile and Karl are family on opposite sides of the line. Freddie wants revenge on Baron Von Dorf, the German officer whose raid killed his wife. Anna is tracking Von Dorf too, because he is forcing her father to build war machines.
A dog named Walt ties them together. Walt is a German Army medical dog, and he pulls Emile from rubble after an Allied attack on Von Dorf’s camp.
Shovels, Barbed Wire and Timed Bandages
Valiant Hearts is a side-scrolling puzzle adventure. Each chapter is split into sections, and most sections ask you to solve a problem by finding the right object. Some sections are wartime set pieces where you survive heavy gunfire. Some are stealth, where you avoid detection. A few are rhythmic car chases set to classic songs.
Each character has a tool. Emile carries a shovel and can dig through soft ground. Freddie can cut barbed wire. Anna treats patients, and the treatment is a timing minigame. All four can interact with objects, throw projectiles, and knock out guards with a melee attack.
Walt does the work no human can. He squeezes into small spaces, fetches items, holds onto things, activates switches, and moves through enemy territory without being suspected.
Every segment hides optional collectibles, and each one unlocks a fact about the war. The game also carries a hint system that kicks in if you sit stuck on a section long enough.
Reading the Letters and Walking the Trenches
The team had no experience making a puzzle game. They took inspiration from old LucasArts adventure games and from titles like The Cave. The game runs on UbiArt Framework, which was previously used in Rayman Legends.
For the history, the team did the work. They listened to first-hand accounts of the war, read letters written by enlisted soldiers, and traveled to the remains of wartime trenches in France. The stated goal was to assist players to remember World War I during its centenary in 2014.
They also made a deliberate choice about genre. The team stayed away from creating a war game or a first-person shooter, and focused instead on the trials and tribulations of soldiers on both sides.
That decision shapes everything. You spend most of Valiant Hearts doing chores under fire.
Four Characters, Four Tools
The character kit is the clearest expression of the game’s design. Each person solves problems in a way the others cannot, and the game keeps them apart so the tools stay distinct.
| Character | Role | Unique ability |
|---|---|---|
| Emile | French farmer, drafted into the French Army | Shovel — digs through soft ground |
| Karl | Emile’s German son-in-law, drafted into the German Army | Serves under Von Dorf; flees when the Allies attack |
| Freddie | American volunteer in the French army | Cuts through barbed wire |
| Anna | Belgian veterinary student and battlefield nurse | Treats patients with timed button presses |
| Walt | German Army medical dog | Squeezes into small areas, fetches items, activates switches, moves without suspicion |
The table also shows the problem. Karl is the emotional hinge of the story and the least mechanically distinct of the four.
The Zeppelin Chase From Ypres to Reims
The plot runs on pursuit. Emile is wounded and captured after his unit is wiped out, then forced to cook for the Germans. His captor is Von Dorf, who deploys chlorine gas and zeppelins against his enemies. Karl recognizes Emile while serving under Von Dorf, but the Allies attack the camp and Karl has to flee.
Emile escapes in the confusion and meets Freddie. The two of them meet Anna. The three chase Von Dorf’s zeppelin from Ypres to Reims. It crashes. Von Dorf escapes in a biplane with Anna’s father. Karl survives the crash, is captured, and becomes a prisoner of war. Anna goes with him to the prison to make sure he recovers. Emile and Freddie push on toward Fort Douaumon to settle their score with Von Dorf and rescue Anna’s father.
That is a lot of plot for a game that wants you to slow down. The chase structure keeps the chapters moving, but it also pulls against the game’s best instinct, which is to sit still in a trench and look at what the war did to the people in it.
Where the Game Slips
The weaknesses are structural, not sentimental.
- The puzzle design is thin. Most sections amount to finding one object and using it in one place.
- The rhythmic car chases sit badly beside the trench sections. They are a different game wearing the same coat.
- Von Dorf is a cartoon villain in a story that otherwise refuses cartoons. Chlorine gas and zeppelins are real horrors, but a bluster-and-monocle antagonist gives the player someone to hate, which is exactly what the rest of the game avoids.
- Karl’s arc is the most affecting and the least playable. He is acted upon rather than acting.
The collectibles are the counterargument to all of this. They are optional, they are quiet, and they are the only part of Valiant Hearts that teaches rather than tells. A player who ignores them gets a decent adventure game. A player who hunts them gets something closer to a memorial.
What the Art and the Dog Carry
The visuals and the music carry the tone. Critics at the time praised the game’s themes, visuals, animation and music, and applauded the developer for enabling play rather than spectacle. That praise holds up. The 2D animated comic book style keeps the violence at a distance without making it abstract, and the score does the emotional work the dialogue never attempts.
The dog helps more than he should have to. Walt is a mechanic, a companion and a narrative device, and he earns all three jobs. When the game needs you to care about a character who has no lines, it sends the dog.
The historical grounding is the real achievement. Listening to first-hand accounts and reading soldiers’ letters is not a marketing line when the result is a game that treats both armies as full of people. Emile and Karl are family. The game never lets you forget it.
7.6 Out of 10
Valiant Hearts: The Great War scores 7.6 out of 10. That number is fair, and it is fair for a specific reason: the game’s ambition outruns its mechanics. The puzzle design is too simple to carry the campaign, and the car chases, in this paper’s view, are a misstep the game never recovers from. Von Dorf belongs in a different, lesser game.
What saves it is the thing Ubisoft Montpellier set out to do. This is not a war game. It is a remembrance, built by people who read the letters and walked the trenches, and it asks the player to do the same work. The collectibles are the best evidence.
The 2014 centenary is over. In this paper’s view, Valiant Hearts treats the enemy as a person more consistently than most games about the First World War, and that alone justifies the score. Play it for the dog, the art and the facts. Do not play it for the puzzles.
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