In George Orwell’s 1938 memoir about the Spanish War, titled A Homage to Catalonia, he disparagingly describes trench warfare as “mingled boredom and discomfort.” To emphasize how meaningless this conflict was, he declares that life in the trenches is “as uneventful as a city clerk’s [life] and almost as regular.” These ideas would eventually coalesce into his anti-totalitarian works such as Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, where he elaborated upon the futility of life under a misguided, and often malevolent, authority.
While Orwell’s books embellish his own fruitless experience in the trenches, The Caribou Trail, the latest game from studio Unreliable Narrators, does a better job of enunciating his thoughts. In this game, players follow the Newfoundland Regiment at the Gallipoli Peninsula during the First World War. Historically speaking, the mission at Gallipoli was an ultimately unsuccessful Allied effort to wrestle control of Suvla Bay from the Turkish army. The tour resulted in over 44 Canadian deaths from Turkish shelling, sniping, and, more often the case, trench-related diseases as the soldiers settled down into their dugouts.
The “settling down” part of trench warfare is where the narrative of The Cariobu Trail takes aim, giving players an honest glimpse at humdrum on the ground, when so many other video games in the genre focus exclusively on the gun-slinging action. In this way, the tragedy of war is underscored by its mundanity, not its gruesomeness, offering a refreshing perspective on the true life of a soldier. The story focuses on three squad mates as they navigate the day-to-day of living in enemy territory. These are not war heroes of Call of Duty or Battlefield ilk; instead, these are fairly average, steady men doing the simple things needed to survive. They dig trenches, cook meals, check the mail, and swap stories from their regional folklore.
Beyond these rote tasks, most of the plot in The Caribou Trail is quite uneventful; I found myself walking the same paths over and over to check on familiar faces and rehash circular conversations. Sometimes my comrades had fresh gossip, but more often than not, these soldiers stood still and stared outwards with a blank expression as if they had exhausted their list of things to think about. There is an emptiness to the interminable downtime within The Caribou Trail that feels both incredibly lackluster and astonishingly sincere.
Fortunately, the gameplay is not as tedious as the subject matter. The Caribou Trail follows in the tradition of previous standout walking sim games that use environmental storytelling mechanics to immerse the player. As you walk around the trenches or scamper across the no-fly zone, you will encounter all sorts of documents pinned up on dirt walls and lying next to deceased soldiers, often containing historically inspired anecdotes from the war.
Similar to their first game, Two Falls, Unreliable Narrators do a great job of educating players about a traditionally overlooked group of people via copious and detailed exposition. I enjoyed uncovering the backstory on why the medic was unceremoniously missing from his post or how a soldier was forced to join the army due to some uncouth behaviors in his short time as a business owner. There was a particularly poignant letter from a wife to her missing husband about how long she should wait before she moves on with her life. These little details really helped to flesh out the vibrant, disparate circumstances in which we find the men of the Newfoundland Regiment.
Players will also make choices in the character dialogue, but while these help establish the game’s tone on a micro-narrative level, their long-term effects feel superficial at best. Sure, the way I play Fisher can make him more charitable than someone else might play him, but this is a linear experience, and the game doesn’t really budge on tailoring the overarching plot to each player’s decisions. The developers have a very specific story to tell about real-world events and their legacy, so a more heavily authored direction here is warranted.
Another part of the gameplay that stood out to me was the highly tactile, context-sensitive input for doing chores. These moments involved the player much more than most games would for these types of mechanical activities, adding to the overall immersion. For instance, to shovel dirt, you have to hold down one button/trigger to grip the shovel while long-pressing another to dig the dirt, then even flicking the thumbstick to toss the dirt to the side, never forgetting to keep holding the button that is gripping the shovel.
Cutting wire and cooking stew are similar in that they both require multi-digit, multi-step inputs from the player with varying degrees of press/hold/tap/flick to execute a seemingly simple action. While I admit this is quite a feat for hand-eye coordination, I think it gives weight and meaning to even the simplest of actions these soldiers had to do, breaking up the monotony and giving the soldier (as well as the player, by extension) a much-needed sense of accomplishment.
For as much as I loved the ways the game dealt with the topic of wartime boredom in both its writing and game mechanics, there were a few moments where the game seemed to veer off course into cliché heroics, character tropes, and tonal shifts that distracted me from its shining moments. First of all, there is a scene where two soldiers go and do the whole Call of Duty seek-and-destory sequence that felt off-kilter from how these characters had been established up until that point. I realize that the battle at Caribou Hill really happened, but this game seemed to be more interested in showing you the story of the majority of soldiers who didn’t storm that hill than the few who did…or so I thought.
The other aspect of the game that felt a little disingenuous was how the game treated the psychological horrors of war. While some aspects of this theme are implemented well, insofar as the game shows how war can shatter the illusion of mundanity in a split second, others just didn’t seem to resonate with the overarching narrative. For instance, there are several scenes where the trio of friends share ghost stories over dinner. The dialogue in these scenes is superb, expertly building on the interpersonal relationships and backstory of the main cast.
However, these ghost stories supernaturally blended with the real experience of the soldiers, which didn’t quite land with me given how hard the game had worked to ground itself in its historical setting. When a dead soldier turned his head to look into my character’s eyes, I couldn’t help but chuckle a little, as it felt much more goofy than it should have. The Caribou Trail is not a grizzly, disturbing war thriller, and so it feels odd when it moonlights as one.
One thing that does feel spot-on is the soundtrack. The opening theme, written by Raphael D’Amour, is evocative and authentic to the historical setting. The sound design is littered with crunchy, ambient noises and sound effects that highlight the ebb and flow of tension and reprieve during trench warfare. The visual design follows the principles set by Two Falls, incorporating soft, gentle textures and warm colors with much of the detail smoothed over. This fits perfectly with the theme of soldiers losing their definition during war, so to speak. However, yet again, this same art style betrays the game’s message when the writing sidesteps into horror because all the character faces are far too bright and stylized to convey any real sense of dread.
