Conscript Review — Trenches and Tribulations

Frequently, Wartime games have been depicted in a light that often betrays reality. More oorah! than ‘orror, if you will. Games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, War Thunder and many more have blurred the line when it comes to the harsh truths of war, with some outright rewriting history. Jordan Mochi’s Conscript endeavours to be different, throwing you into the trenches of the First World War to fight tooth and nail for your life.

Amid one of the longest and most horrific conflicts in history, with more than 700,000 casualties suffered by both sides collectively, Andre, a lone French Soldier, must fight through the trenches of Verdun to find and save his brother, Pierre.

Conscript wastes no time in staging the bleak realities of war, relying on real depictions of horror throughout history rather than the supernatural like many games in the survival horror genre. The constant bombardment of shells shakes the world around you, bodies left in festering piles, and soldiers scattered among the battlefield one way or another. While a harrowing setting, it’s refreshing to see a game that isn’t glorifying combat in a video game.

A faithful survival horror, Conscript features a mix of puzzles that span the treacherous trenches and towns. These can range from a simple key that unlocks a building, to more thought-provoking and drawn-out challenges. All of this while you must avoid the swath of German troops in between you and the next objective.

Whilst behind enemy lines, you can be greeted by the calming blue light of a safe room. Easing you into security, these spaces welcome you with a personal chest, a friendly trader that barters in cigarettes, and a save point in the form of Andre’s journal. I found the game to be generous with the items it gives you, never even coming close to running out of ink cartridges, the limited resource that allows you to save your game. Still, I found myself hoarding them just in case, most of the time to my own detriment.

Combat teeters the line between powerful and redundant, with the game rarely placing you in an encounter that forces you to fight for your life. When you are eventually faced with combat, it’s frequently easy enough to outrun your aggressor, even with the small amount of stamina you possess. In later chapters, some areas are flooded, slowing your movement and preventing you from dodging at all. I found these forces of nature to be my most consistent hindrance during my playthrough of Conscript.

If you do choose to stand and fight, then you are in luck. Weapons strike a nice balance, powerful enough to stop an enemy dead in their tracks but slow and bulky enough that you’ll be left vulnerable if mishandled. There are a good variety of guns to be found throughout your journey, and given the ability to upgrade each one with gun parts found around the battlefield, you can quickly become a one-man army.

Enemy AI can be inconsistent, with some troops having eagle-eyesight and others operating similar to a horse with blinders on, a comical scenario in such a serious game. The one exception to this were the pack-rats that turn up if a dead body is left in the trenches. While easy to kill, these tiny bastards frequently took down a large chunk of my health as they swarmed in numbers, made worse by the debuff they can inflict upon you, halving your health.

Before the game starts, you are given the options of unlimited saves and autosaving. I highly recommend that you check at least one of these boxes, as losing progress can range from a minor inconvenience to an absolute slog. The game stays true to its depiction of wartime with oppressively dark and drab environments throughout, boasting a muddy colour palette that sometimes makes it difficult to navigate, especially in more open areas later in the campaign. There is also a large reliance on backtracking, something that becomes tremendously tiresome in the later stages of the game, given that rooms rarely have a use after visiting them once.

Conscript’s story beats frequently play out in peaceful vignettes. A time before deployment that is strongly juxtaposed against your current situation, replacing the bleak, constant shelling and shouting of the war with a bright and quaint existence in the countryside. While the game has some exposition told through bouts of dialogue and diary entries, it does an amazing job of showing the horrors of the war through audio and visual means.

Mochi has done a tremendous amount of work to retain the realities of wartime in his game. Soldiers carry photos of their loved ones on their body, reminding you that a family may now be broken as a direct consequence of your actions. Posters propagandizing the war are littered around barracks and houses. You’re constantly reminded that there is no definite right or wrong. Your goal is to rescue your brother, and the actions you take in that pursuit are yours alone.