War Mongrels: a game about Lithuania we didn’t ask, but, probably, deserved
I’ll start with a disclaimer. I’ve found this game to be a particularly interesting case for conversation because the messaging behind it really clicked with my reality. I found it somewhat weird, that developers, in their comms, focus on the Westernised perception of WWII, but I totally get what they mean. I’m a 40-year-old gamer from Lithuania and throughout my life, I’ve learned about several different Second World Wars. And I keep on discovering many more.
Intro (scroll for review :D)
As a child, I’ve seen WWII as an epic battle between good and evil. Soviet good vs Fascist evil, to be precise. This was told in schools, books and TV (if we had the luck to see it). There were no Americans, or Brits, or French, or Poles, or Fins, or Japanese in that war. To put the level of a brainwash into perspective, here’s a short memory from my pre-school years.
WWII was a popular topic (greatest soviet heroic epic), so most of the boys in class would fight boredom by drawing pictures about WWII. Most of our games outside would be about war too and, of course, soviets would dominate the drawings, and no one wanted to be on the German side in our childish wargames. However, in the mid-’80s ideas of Lithuanian independence became quite common, it wasn’t something discussed in complete secrecy and therefore our drawings and games changed. We didn’t ad the concept of Allies to it, nor did we know what Axis was. We didn’t even realise that there was any difference between guerrilla forces, since those if they were portrayed at all, were all soviets. So, after realising, that the Soviets are our oppressors, we simply started to draw Germans as the winning side and wanted to roleplay German soldiers in our war games. This really frustrated my grandpa, so he started to talk a bit about war with me (a topic he would usually avoid at all costs). Then the real independence came and with it an influx of new versions of World War II. There were many and none of them was precise, or correct, or right, or wrong, or honest.
One person recently told me, that history is not even science and in this case, I lean to agree. A compilation of memories and events might be seen and scientific, but who's to say which memory is right or wrong? The event was global, but memories and stories are always personal. And here, in Lithuania, we still get to witness it to this day. Like any other country, right now we are a highly distracted and divided nation, with clashing opinions on human rights, immigration, vaccination (and mandates), 5G and so on… We also fight for our rights to have different memories of dramatic events like the Ponary massacre and our own part in the Holocaust. We are also confused about which of our murderous heroes are still heroes because there’s simply no easy way to go about it. Once between a rock and a hard place, always between a rock and hard place, I guess.
With that said, I am sure, that whenever we talk about painful, global events, regardless of schools and universities we attend, regardless of education we gain, most of us will simply assemble the borders of a huge jigsaw puzzle. As to the filling of the rest of it, I’d say it’s a task for a lifetime and one lifetime won’t be enough. Eagerness to fill that puzzle with more stories and desire to develop some sort of empathy towards the topic was a reason why I fell in love with Medal of Honor: Underground when it first appeared. This is the reason, why I think this cute Norwegian game My Child Lebensborn is so important, and everyone must play it. And therefore, I really enjoyed War Mongrels a game daring to explore famous events from a largely unheard point of view. Even at the risk of being review bombed or dubbed as propaganda.
The Review
War Mongrels is a real-time, tactical-strategy game developed by the Polish studio Destructive Creations. For older fans of video games, it could be described as a Commandos clone, without emphasis on the word clone, because while there are many similarities between the two, there are differences as well. Differences totally unrelated to gameplay but tied to meaningfulness. It’s not just a World War II game — War Mongrels is a kind of a journey into the horrors of war, a story about forgotten heroes and anti-heroes. War Mongrels, like any other game made by Destructive Creations, can hurt, trigger, or shock and I’m sure that was a part of the plan. It is a game we didn’t want but probably deserved.
A Jew exterminator, a Nazi and a Jew come into the bar …
We start the game by commanding two Nazi soldiers. They both serve in the penal battalion, but for different reasons. Your regular bully Ewald is a typical hooligan and therefore constantly gets into trouble. He also doesn’t like being called anything else, but Silesian. Manfred is the perfect product of Nazi propaganda that breaks down only after receiving an order to exterminate a village somewhere in Belarus. They disagree a bit on values but agree that it’s time to bail, so they use the Soviet attack as cover and take off.
Thus begins the impossible journey of two impossible friends, during which more characters join them. We will meet the first of them on arrival to Ponary, where the Nazis just hauled another train of people to exterminate. Luke, whom we met, is now a Nazi prisoner, but a former collaborator. He also broke down because of the cruel routine of people extermination, so he betrayed the Nazis and joined the Polish rebels AK (“Armia Krajowa”). This is happening quite late in the war, so the game does not need to justify AK crimes against the Lithuanian civilian population and Luke’s motivations feels believable. Thanks to Luke, our heroes will later join the AK and take sabotage and intelligence actions around Vilnius on the eve of Operation Ostra Brama. Later, the game begins to move away from Lithuania, although the events of Vilnius and Ponary will linger in character dialogues almost to the end of the game.
Once in the ranks of AK, we will undertake quite meaningful and important missions. Nope, not the destruction of railway guns or subs, but collecting evidence of Nazi crimes and presenting it to the British. Several more characters will join us in this endeavour. Poles belonging to the “Silent Unseen” (Cichociemni) squadron, trained by British intelligence. In the game, they will both hide under the nicknames Lead and Rubble. One is a regular smoking sniper, the other is an explosives expert. These two will meet a very typical female Greta. Well, as the game progresses, Greta may reveal herself as an interesting character, but only in dialogues. Finally, Joachim will join us. He’s a Jewish businessman and philanthropist from Germany, forced to flee to Poland only to be captured and sent to the camp there. We will liberate him from Chelmno concentration camp, where the Nazis are already improving the system of industrial extermination, people are being poisoned in truck trunks by diverting exhaust gases there. We will record all this and try to transport it to the British, but due to unfortunate coincidences, we will also slaughter Nazi dignitaries in France. Meanwhile, the rest of the group will take part in the Warsaw Uprising.
During this journey, I believe, we will each reveal new historical knowledge to ourselves, just as we will be able to witness the clumsily written but empathetically engaging daily life of the characters. They fight and sacrifice together, but disagree, constantly bringing up each other’s indifference, crimes, or flaws of human nature. I’m sure that the game will trigger quite a few players during dialogues. But it’s ok. While the plot of the game is fictional, the events behind them are real. This is also reflected in the collectables section, where we will find biographies of the characters or reflections and testimonies written by consulting historians. Yes, it is opinionated, but the writer is consistent in acknowledging that.
I think the collectables reveal the real intention of the developers as they are not limited to accusing the Nazis alone. They trash everyone. Soviets and the Western Allies, for their actions and inactions on the eve of World War II, while it happened and in the years that followed. I can relate to that –everything to the east of Germany and to the West of the USSR was a place between a hammer and a hard place indeed. And many nations are in a virtually similar spot today. Therefore, exploring this story can be seen as a cry for the victims, who had been forgotten or left in the margins for political (synonym to selfish) reasons. To some it will seem that developers are wailing in grief, someone will blame them for spitting bile, but the fact is, that there is a historical and moral basis to do both.
Somewhat broken Commandos
When it comes to the gameplay, I have a simple statement: War Mongrels isn’t technically sound, in fact, in some respects, it’s quite broken. Controls and UI is something one might need some time to get accustomed to. And when it comes to bugs, the situation is more fluid. There are regular updates, but it still seems that frequent fixes, in addition to the bugs that are fixed, create new ones. However, I must add that some of the bugs in the game can be seen as positive things. I initially called the game a commando clone and when it comes to bugs, one can draw the same parallel (I’ll explain this later).
War Mongrels has a dozen of massive maps where we usually have multiple tasks. Sometimes, the tasks assigned are clear from the start, sometimes they may change or evolve according to the plot events. We are given a platoon of saboteurs to overcome each level, so we can’t choose them ourselves. The maps, the objectives as well as the heroes entrusted to us, are all part of one big riddle.
As with Commandos, we control the characters here individually, unless we need to move an entire squad, in which case we can select several of them. Each hero has unique skills, for example, Ewald is a big guy, so he can break necks completely without sound, or defeat two opponents at once in hand-to-hand combat. Luke, meanwhile, can set traps for patrols or scale buildings while using a grappling hook. Greta can flirt with Nazis and divert their attention or gas a bunch of them. Manfred can whistle and has a pocket watch that attracts Soviet soldiers and Nazis, too. Lead is a great sniper and smoker, so he can lure his victims by throwing a pack of cigarettes. Joachim can change into a Nazi officer and infiltrate as deeply into enemy territory as he wants. He can only be revealed by dogs, so he usually carries cyanide-laced sausage too. Every character has a few unique abilities and most of them have a thing or two in common. Ability to use a knife or a pistol, for example. Interactions with the environment can also be constrained by the personal characteristics of the characters. Some can unlock doors, others can climb vegetation or manipulate various devices. Ewald alone can push heavier objects; other characters can do this in pairs.
Enemies are divided into two basic types — soldiers and officers. Soldiers mostly guard or patrol the areas entrusted to them, and we can right-click on them to see their field of vision. The latter also has two levels i.e. a space where they see everything and a space where lying, crawling or kneeling characters are invisible.
The soldiers also have ears, so they hear the footsteps, shots fired, sounds of a brawl or bodies falling to the ground. By the way, this part is very well executed as it allows players to see what will be heard or not in advance. Having ears and eyes is good, but usually, it won’t help the enemy due to the lack of will. So whenever they see a pocket watch, cigarettes, alcohol, or hear strange sounds, they will always go to pick up stuff or satisfy their curiosity. This is probably the only feature that distinguishes them from officers who usually do not succumb to simple lures and remain on their posts. Officers also recognize Manfred, even if he wears a Wehrmacht uniform during the mission.
There is a third type of “enemy”, by the way. It would be civilians met in occupied France. These guys are not Nazi collaborators per se, but they are easily scared by violence. So, if they see a character stab someone, they’ll scream attracting unwanted attention. The developers neither warn nor punish players if they decide to kill some bystanders or merchants. It’s totally up to you to decide what fate the civilians, who don’t want to throw down the Nazi yoke, deserve. It’s also a very interesting angle of moral choices, doesn’t really matter if it was intentional.
The progression through levels, in theory, is quite simple. We analyse the map, find the objectives, memorise the patrol routes and start creating gaps in the seemingly insurmountable defence system. We kill the nearest patrols, hide some corpses, and crawl a lot. The levels in the game are quite big and challenging. Quite often, the challenge is a bit exaggerated as it would often feel that developers would rather place more enemy troops instead of more complex puzzles. On the other hand, each level or section of it can obviously be cleared using at least a few different tactics, so despite minor flaws, each player will find a way to play the game in their own style. Especially if that style is taking advantage of the bugs. As I mentioned, there are many of them and once discovered each player may decide what to do with it.
The loss of a leader left the Nazis spinning in one place? Well, if you don’t need to go to that place, leave them be. Some of the Nazis fail to see Ewald? Great, although invisibility is not his skill, why not take advantage of it anyway? Sometimes while using an object, a lever, or spraying a squad of Nazis with gas, characters might be spotted, and players will furiously hit the quick load button. In the newly loaded game, the heroes will return to their initial positions, while the effect (gas or falling crate) remains. Again, sometimes this gives a huge advantage, and sometimes the game must be loaded again because you need a crate that is still hanging. In this respect, the game reminds Commandos through the prism that the puzzles there were so difficult at the time, that players were deliberately looking for bugs (e.g., it was very fashionable to interrupt the animations) to cut corners. In War Mongrels bugs are looking for players.
True, there is one bug that is hard to forgive. While installing the game, I saw complaints from players that after the fixes, the game save file no longer works for them. I was sure I wouldn’t face it, after all, the problem is known, but it happened just before I sat down to write this text! The game update has been released and all game save files have stopped working. This won’t prompt to replay the whole game, since every visited level remains unlocked, but if some level was saved halfway through players get to start over. This is terribly annoying, as it can take quite a few hours to complete a level, especially later in the game when the map size and difficulty increase dramatically.
In case of fire “C”
The game has several different character control modes. While using standard, we just click the mouse where to go, whom to stab and the characters go and stab. However, sometimes situations require particularly high coordination between heroes. Let’s say the trio of Nazis play cards, so we want Manfred to whistle, and when the Nazis turn their eyes to him, others emerge from the shadows gassing, clubbing, stabbing them all at the same time. To complete this sequence, you’ll need to position the characters, hit TAB for bullet time, give orders, and hit Enter to execute. The initial idea will fail often due to bugs or the player’s mistakes, but we can hit TAB again and correct the situation if necessary. It’s a fun feature that, despite the specific flaws, not only works but also allows you to create carnage that is not needed to complete the objective but is simply fun.
The next mode is activated with the “C” key. This is a combat mode in which we control the characters with the WASD buttons while aiming and shooting with the mouse. Characters, which are normally idle without orders, will return fire in this mode. In this state, the game is reminiscent of the infamous studio title Hatred. And by design, it feels that developers are quite ok with the brute force approach too. Especially when the mission has just begun or is nearing completion. Sometimes a shootout attracts just the right number of enemy soldiers, that could be killed without losing too much HP, or raising alarm.
I would advise believing in guns, though, especially pistols. The sound of shots fired isn’t too loud as of now, so while it will naturally feel that knives are the best stealth option it’s not always true. Shooting your way through the level without breaking stealth is quite possible.
And here came the Witcher
Well, at the end of the review, briefly about the rest of the technical aspects — visuals and sounds. As soon as I started playing, I remember going back to the menu to see who voiced the characters, and then again to check on the sound department. In this order, because Ewald is voiced by Doug Cockle (Geralt, The Witcher III). The choice is a bit weird, because, as I mentioned, Ewald is an ordinary hooligan while Doug’s voice brings in quite a different character. In my opinion, this voice would fit Manfred better, because he’s the one to explore all the grey space between black and white. But I believe Ewald was the developers’ favourite (opinionated and straightforward Silesian, just like the devs :D), so I can understand why he got the sexiest voice. Voiceovers of the other characters are ok, but the game, in general, suffers from an old war movie syndrome. For some reason, Polish operatives speak with excellent, somewhat arrogant, British accents, while the Nazis speak semi-German, semi-English, with a stupid German accent, and the same can be said about French. These days I would really expect a more realistic approach and more courage. There’s not too much dialogue, so using original languages and English subtitles wouldn’t be a burden to players, it’s becoming quite common in TV series on Netflix for example. Would definitely ad to realism, while everyone would enjoy learning curse words, of which there are many.
I’ve checked on the composer only after I started reading the historical texts unlocked during the mission, the music playing in the background, the mood and the choice of musical instruments sounded very familiar. And yes, this was done under the supervision of Polish composer Adam Skorupa, so the similarities with Witcher are not accidental again. But no objections, in this case, it’s just a job well done.
Since I’ve started comparing stuff to the Witcher, I can add that the visual aspect of the game and attention to detail is here as well. The game’s genre dictates that it must look perfect from an isometric, bird’s eye perspective. And it looks great, but if you come up with an idea to zoom in you won’t be disappointed either. You may not be able to see what cards these Nazis are holding in their hand, but you’ll observe their drinks and snacks in perfect detail. Developers spared no effort in creating environments or decor items, and while we can’t look inside most of the buildings, the ones that we can peek into are very well executed.
The only nuance where War Mongrels move away from the Witcher’s diligence is the writing of dialogues. Especially considering that on an emotional level, the two games are quite similar, exploring the same sensitive and very grey space between good and evil. Let me just say here that the War Mongrels tried to be downright sincere but came out harsh and even rude at times.
In closing, I would like to remind you once again that War Mongrels is still suffering from some technical flaws and given its complexity and genre (once popular but extremely niche today), I really can’t recommend it to just everyone. At the same time, however, it is a daring game that explores topics, many devs, won’t touch for a very long time. Players from all around the world will learn new stuff all while pondering on the concept of a Hero. I’m happy I had an opportunity to play and I’d love to get more games like this from all the different corners of the world. We know the history, but there are so many stories that deserve to be experienced specifically in this medium.