Although there have been a huge number of video games set during the Second World War, the scope of these games has often been quite limited. All too often things slip into the pulp action of shooters like Call of Duty or recent Medal of Honor, or give the player the chance to be a strategic mastermind in tactics titles like Hearts of Iron, meaning that the personal stories of the war are often lost. This is not the case with Gerda: A Flame In Winter, from developer PortaPlay and publisher DONTNOD.
Gerda: A Flame In Winter is set towards the end of World War 2 in Tinglev, a small town in Denmark close to the German border. Gerda, our titular character, is a half-Danish, half-German nurse in the town who has seen first-hand the impact of the Nazi occupation, and must make choices of who to support as resistance activities begin to grow in strength. The player must choose how Gerda acts in these times, who to support, and whether protecting her loved ones is more important than enacting change.
One of the most impressive things about the preview build of Gerda: A Flame In Winter is the way that it ties into the history of Denmark during World War 2. Tislev was once part of the German Empire, and this historical proximity between Denmark and Germany is seen in its characters as German-Danish families intertwine - Hjalmar Schacht was born in Tislev, for instance. It's a complicated game for a complicated situation, and Gerda: A Flame In Winter makes Danes, Germans, Resistance, and Occupation Forces different factions within its game systems.
Of course this comes with its own potential pitfalls, and Gerda: A Flame In Winter is careful not to 'both sides' the Nazi occupation. Based on this preview, the game never shies aways from the horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, and the cruelty of the occupiers and collaborators alike. Instead, it shows the ways in which people made personal decisions to support the regime, from financial gain to ideological belief, helping the player realise the insidious ways fascism creeps into everyday life.
In spite of the hard subject matter, the preview build of Gerda: A Flame In Winter is very pretty. There is a flowing, artistic quality akin to looking at a moving painting, which gives the game the feel of impressionism. It's not always perfect at this moment in time, as sometimes things like the frost visuals that appear around the edges of the screen can become a bit overbearing, but it is certainly unique and eye-catching.
From a gameplay perspective, Gerda: A Flame In Winter is a role-playing game in a loose sense. Each day the player is given skill points for Compassion, Insight, and Wit, and these can then be used in certain scenarios to change the outcome. There's also a random chance attached to Gerda's actions with a roll of the dice, with some options harder than others depending on the situation. Meanwhile, the player can spot items to pick up in the game world or persuade away from other characters, which again can prove useful later on.
As such Gerda: A Flame In Winter ends up feeling like a blend of light RPG mechanics with an emphasis on moral choices and elements of adventure game systems, akin to the output of Telltale Games but without the quick time events. The player must keep track of how much different characters trust Gerda, and she must choose who she wants to support in different moments. This, in turn, changes her standing with the game's different factions.
Since this is a preview, of course things aren't perfect just yet. At a surface level perspective there's the odd moment of slippery character animation that breaks immersion, but that's to be expected from a game still in development. Something that may require more tweaking before release is the way that Gerda's bearing with different factions is impacted by private conversations, as although whispers could of course pass down to things like the resistance movement, it doesn't give the player - and Gerda - much room to try and be deceptive or manipulate the Nazi characters without it having a negative impact on her standing elsewhere.
Overall, though, Gerda: A Flame In Winter is shaping up extremely well. This is a sort of story rarely told in video games, away from the comic book sensibilities of more mainstream World War 2 games, and putting out a game where the player is more vulnerable and the stakes are higher could give the player the kind of moral choices to make them think. What would we do in this situation, when we are on our own, without an army at our backs?
Gerda: A Flame In Winter releases in 2022 for PC and Nintendo Switch. Screen Rant was provided with a PC download code for the purposes of this preview.