History VideoGame / ValiantHearts

** All of the African-Americans (bar Freddie) in ''Coming Home'' all have open eyes to showcase their innocence and a sense of eagerness, contrasting with the White-Americans where their eyes are shadowed just like anyone else.

* TwoFistedTales: Ultimately subverts this by placing it in the real-world context of World War 1. The early game focuses on the RagtagBunchOfMisfits tracking down a [[AristocratsAreEvil Diabolical German Baron]] who has kidnapped TheChick's ReluctantMadScientist father and used his genius to engineer devastating super-weapons in the name of German Imperialism. However, even once the apparent BigBad is defeated, the War itself continues on and the game shifts focus to the GrayAndGreyMorality of the situation and the extreme personal toll of the war on the protagonists.

* FakingTheDeath: [[spoiler:Karl fakes his death by swapping his dog tag with that of a dead man.]]

** All the French Officers are [[BloodKnight Blood Knights]] to a man, and the last one encountered is a DirtyCoward to boot.

* GrayAndGrayMorality: Goes out of its way to show that WWI was decidedly *not* a showdown between good and evil.

* ShotAtDawn: [[spoiler:Emile is executed by firing squad for killing his commanding officer]]

* BigBad:
** Baron Von Dorf, in a sense. He's the commander of Karl's regiment, and is noted for being a ruthless CombatPragmatist unafraid of using toxic gas. Of course, this was before the concept of gas being against the rules of war was invented, and so he may just be a technophile using the most advanced weapons of his day to win the day for Germany as quick as possible, protecting his own troops (or just his own life) in the process. Less forgivable, though, is he being as close to ArmchairMilitary as possible and still be on the battlefield. This, sadly, was not uncommon during the Great War.

* AmericaSavesTheDay: America doesn't show up until the later stages of the war, so very downplayed. More or less played straight with Freddie, who is a major badass.
** Takes more prominence in the second game, when American troops finally arrive in France en masse and help tip the balance in the Entente's favor.

* BigBad: Baron Von Dorf, in a sense. He's the commander of Karl's regiment, and is noted for being a ruthless CombatPragmatist unafraid of using toxic gas. Of course, this was before the concept of gas being against the rules of war was invented, and so he may just be a technophile using the most advanced weapons of his day to win the day for Germany as quick as possible, protecting his own troops (or just his own life) in the process.
** Less forgivable, though, is he being as close to ArmchairMilitary as possible and still be on the battlefield. This, sadly, was not uncommon during the Great War.

** [[spoiler:The second game ends with all of the main characters managing to survive the war. However, Freddie is sadly killed after he returns home by a pair of thugs who took issue with him dating Anna.]]
* BlackBeadEyes: On the 3 occasions eyes are seen clearly: [[spoiler:Freddie in a flashback to his wedding day, where his wife got killed in a German bombing raid; Victor (Karl's son), and Freddie's younger brother. Civilian children have regular, big round eyes. Open eyes seem to symbolize innocence in the game.]]
* BottomlessMagazines: During some levels, you have to avoid the fire of German machine guns by running when they pause firing, certainly due to overheating or need to swap ammunition belts. In some other situations, however, you have to contend with machine guns that ''never'' stop firing. In the German-occupied fortress there's also a soldier with a flamethrower and a seemingly limitless supply of fuel for it.

* DemotedToExtra: In early promotional materials, the British pilot George was billed to be one of the playable main characters. However, in the game itself, he only shows up as an NPC for a single mission as an aerial spotter. He does play a larger and playable role in the second game, though.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler:Emile.]]
** During the scene just before [[spoiler:Emile kills his officer]], the officer orders the men to keep charging into machine gun fire, one man, seeing this, seems to dejectedly walk into the open, knowing he'll be killed.

* ForegoneConclusion: [[spoiler:The arrival of the American forces at the very end signifies the beginning of the end for the Great War.]]

** ALighterShadeOfGrey: However, only the Germans are shown [[KickTheDog using chemical weapons or bombing civilian population centers.]] [[spoiler: The German Army kills Freddie's wife during a bombing run and kidnaps Anna's father to force him to develop weapons.]] The French high command, however, is shown boasting about the deaths inflicted after French sappers blow the German positions sky high with underground explosives.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: The game goes out of its way to portray the often overlooked colonial forces that were sent into the war, such as [[UsefulNotes/IndiansWithIglas Indians]], [[UsefulNotes/NepaliWithNastyKnives Gurkhas]], and [[UsefulNotes/CanuckswithChinooks Canadians]] fighting for the British Empire and Algerians and the French Foreign Legion fighting for France.

* ImprobableWeaponUser: In order to maintain the TwoFistedTales/Franco-Belgian comic aesthetic and anti-violence message of the game, none of the player-characters wield guns or other obviously lethal weapons as standard. While briefly using a rifle-with-bayonet as a melee weapon early on (and he never actually fires the rifle), Emile spends most the game using first a ladle and later a [[ShovelStrike shovel]] as a weapon. Anna uses a staff, while Freddie and Karl both favour GoodOldFisticuffs.

* MoodWhiplash: Driving away from Paris to the Cancan... only to stop at a blasted landscape littered with corpses, and the screams of the wounded and dying.
** There are many, especially due to the innocent artstyle. But special mention has to go to Emile's first battle; one moment, they're gloriously charging at German positions on a nice, sunny day, with sparse artillery coming in; the next, Emile's officer gets ripped to shreds by a shell, [[EmpathicEnvironment rain and dark clouds appear instantaneously]], machine guns begin to rattle, dismembered and bloodied corpses start paving the way, and the charge is forced uphill as the artillery grows more intense and becomes harder to avoid.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Save for a brief moment at the beginning, Freddie gets surprisingly little discrimination for his black skin in the game itself, though [[AllThereInTheManual it's mentioned in his background]] that he and Catrin fled to France in the first place to escape a MalignedMixedMarriage in the US.
** Averted in the second game, where James is seen getting bullied by his white coworkers, and Freddie [[spoiler:is killed by a pair of thugs who took issue with him dating Anna]].

* ShotAtDawn: [[spoiler: Emile is executed by firing squad for killing his commanding officer]]
* ShoutOut: The title of the game appears to have been taken from the poem/hymn "O Valiant Hearts", about the fallen in WWI.
** Potentially coincidental: The first-aid dog's name is Walt. Creator/WaltDisney was a Red Cross ambulance driver in France immediately following the war.

* SoundOnlyDeath: [[spoiler:Emile.]]

* TheMedic: Anna.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Anna manages to survive, and saves Karl. He goes back to life with his family, and lives a happy life. Unfortunately, Emile is executed for "murdering" his commanding officer, when in reality he killed him to prevent more people dying due to his [[GeneralRipper insanity]]. Not to mention that the War's aftermath would set the stage for the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII sequel]].]]

* DemotedToExtra: In early promotional materials, the British pilot George was billed to be one of the playable main characters. However, in the game itself, he only shows up as an NPC for a single mission as an aerial spotter.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Despite being fairly historically accurate, there's more than a few licenses taken that are beyond simple RuleOfCool, such as tanks appearing before their historical debut (and shooting down airplanes to boot). For instance, what appears to be a translation error in the in-game narration and material states casualties as deaths; i.e. 600,000 dead at Verdun, as opposed to 600,000 dead, wounded, and captured, the actual historical number. Oddly, this makes the already infamously bloody UsefulNotes/WorldWarI seem even more gruesome than it actually was.[[note]]The casualties at Verdun are still not confirmed to this day. There's a varieties of reasons for this including ill and wounded soldiers being counted towards causalities, but the battle lasted for so long that these men would be back in the trenches before the end (inevitably some would be wounded or get ill again, being counted twice or more). Other reasons include, causalities mistakenly being brought up on other parts of French's Western front (Churchill's mistake, many historians quoted his statistic). Conservative estimates of causalities were as low as 596,000 with the worst case being 976,000. However, the reports of deaths is more consistent being in the 299,000 to 305,000 range. Still not a small number by any means.[[/note]]

** One important aspect of WWI's trench warfare that the game didn't really touch on was the ever-terrifying presence of snipers. It could be that getting randomly killed at any point in a level would have been too frustrating to players. [[spoiler: In reality, the snipers tend to pick off important people (like officers), not random grunts. Killing commanding officers makes the other team less effective at fighting.]]

* ImprobableWeaponUser: In order to maintain the TwoFistedTales/Franco-Belgian comic aesthetic and anti-violence message of the game, none of the player-characters wield guns or other obviously lethal weapons as standard. While briefly using a rifle-with-bayonet as a melee weapon early on (and he never actually fires the rifle), Emile spends most the game using first a ladle and later a [[ShovelStrike shovel]] as a weapon. Anna uses a SimpleStaff, while Freddie and Karl both favour GoodOldFisticuffs.

* BlindingBangs: Save for the children and Freddie's younger brother, all of the character's eyeballs are obscured by either hair, head wear or just represented by a line.

* NiceHat: A lot, as is to be expected. The game features Adrian helmets, Pickelhauben, Brodie helmets, forage caps, kepis, turbans, aviator caps, busbys, top hats, bowlers...

* AdultFear: Having your son-in-law on the opposite side of a war that you are, where he might get killed at any moment? Harrowing. That same son-in-law [[spoiler:desperately trying to save his wife and son from a gas attack?]] Absolutely terrifying.

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: Freddie's fiancée, Catrin, is killed at the beginning of the war and vengeance for her death is his main motivation.

* BadassBeard: '''[[UpToEleven Everyone male.]]''' Even the extras have some form of facial hair. The only exception is Karl. [[RuleOfSymbolism Probably symbolizing his youth and innocence or something.]]

''Valiant Hearts: The Great War'' is a side-scrolling 2D adventure/puzzle game developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Creator/{{Ubisoft}}, set during the Great War; otherwise known as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. The story tells the tale of a number of people who are involved in the war, and their points of view: A drafted German soldier, his French father-in-law, a Belgian nurse, a rescue dog, an American soldier, and more. ''Valiant Hearts'' tells of the impact of the war, and how it tore apart lives, and formed blood brothers on the smoke-filled battlefields of Western Europe. It also makes the point that the moral dimensions of the Great War's Western Front were ones of degree, rather than the absolutes on the Great War's other fronts or those so infamously imposed by Nazi Germany and its [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust genocidal programmes]] in the Second World War. [[note]] Yes, this is a gross oversimplification on the Great War side given the Ottomans' genocidal programmes and the Hindenburg-Ludendorff Junta's plans for postwar ethnic cleansing to make Baltic States into ethnically pure German-only territories. And yes, it is also a gross oversimplification on the Second World War side given that none of the Allies fought - or made any physical efforts - to save other countries' people from oppression or extermination (of course, claiming otherwise made it almost ridiculously easy to secure the moral high ground in the propaganda war). By definition, generalizing leaves out important details. [[/note]]

On November 7, 2014, Valiant Hearts: The Dogs of War, a prequel interactive comic book was released as an update to the IOS version of the game, detailing Walt's backstory.

''Valiant Hearts: The Great War'' is a side-scrolling 2D adventure/puzzle game developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Creator/{{Ubisoft}}, set during the Great War; otherwise known as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. The story tells the tale of a number of people who are involved in the war, and their points of view: A drafted German soldier, his French father-in-law, a Belgian nurse, a rescue dog, an American soldier, and more. Valiant Hearts tells of the impact of the war, and how it tore apart lives, and formed blood brothers on the smoke-filled battlefields of Western Europe. It also makes the point that the moral dimensions of the Great War's Western Front were ones of degree, rather than the absolutes on the Great War's other fronts or those so infamously imposed by Nazi Germany and its [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust genocidal programmes]] in the Second World War. [[note]] Yes, this is a gross oversimplification on the Great War side given the Ottomans' genocidal programmes and the Hindenburg-Ludendorff Junta's plans for postwar ethnic cleansing to make Baltic States into ethnically pure German-only territories. And yes, it is also a gross oversimplification on the Second World War side given that none of the Allies fought - or made any physical efforts - to save other countries' people from oppression or extermination (of course, claiming otherwise made it almost ridiculously easy to secure the moral high ground in the propaganda war). By definition, generalizing leaves out important details [[/note]]

* BitterSweetEnding: [[spoiler:Anna manages to survive, and saves Karl. He goes back to life with his family, and lives a happy life. Unfortunately, Emile is executed for "murdering" his commanding officer, when in reality he killed him to prevent more people dying due to his [[GeneralRipper insanity]]. Not to mention that the War's aftermath would set the stage for the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII sequel]].]]

* BottomlessMagazines: during some levels, you have to avoid the fire of German machine guns by running when they pause firing, certainly due to overheating or need to swap ammunition belts. In some other situations, however, you have to contend with machine guns that ''never'' stop firing. In the German-occupied fortress there's also a soldier with a flamethrower and a seemingly limitless supply of fuel for it.

* FriendToAllChildren: Karl and Anna both qualify for this. The former at one point saved a little girl from wolves despite being so weak from malnutrition that he can hardly help himself. The latter rushes into a burning, chlorine-gas filled room to save another little girl trapped inside.

* InferredHolocaust: The part in which Anna is traversing Belgium shows the Germans gassing the city (a ''civilian population'') and involves Anna having to save several civilians from certain doom... and this actually downplays the German atrocities in Belgium. There's a reason historians refer to the events as "The Rape of Belgium".
* IwoJimaPose The raising of the Canadian Flag at Vimy Ridge is done in a similar style as the raising of the American Flag at Iwo Jima.

* KidnappedByTheCall: Emile and Karl just want to live peacefully with their family, but both are drafted to fight by their respective nations (Karl, being a German native, got kicked out of France). This represents a marked difference with how war media usually portrays the protagonists as [[JumpedAtTheCall eager volunteers]], instead showing that often most soldiers were fighting [[ResignedToTheCall just because they were made to.]]

* MilestoneCelebration: For the 100th anniversary of WWI, although "celebration" is certainly not the right word, given the fact it's one of the most traumatic events in human history. The game was released just days before the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and done with the cooperation and endorsement of France's commission on remembrances of the 100th anniversary of WWI.

* SoundOnlyDeath: [[spoiler:Emile]]

Released on several platforms a few days before the WWI centennial (June 27th, 2014), with an [=iOS=] version following a few months later. Of note is the fact that this is another game that uses the [[SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome Ubiart engine]], such as some previous Ubisoft games, ''VideoGame/RaymanOrigins'' and ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight''.

* AmbidextrousSprite: Zig-zagged; Most of the characters are roughly symmetrical with the item their carrying always showing for accessibility. At the same time Karl averts the trope with the things on his belt and Anna plays it straight with her satchel always facing the player.

* AdultFear: Having your son-in-law on the opposite side of a war that you are, where he might get killed at any moment? Harrowing. That same son [[spoiler:desperately trying to save his wife and son from a gas attack?]] Absolutely terrifying.

Released on several platforms a few days before the WWI centennial (June 27th, 2014), with an [=iOS=] version following a few months later. Of note is the fact that this is another game that uses the [[VisualEffectsOfAwesome Ubiart engine]], such as some previous Ubisoft games, ''VideoGame/RaymanOrigins'' and ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight''.

* ZergRush: Shown several times in the game, most often by the French army, with depressingly predictable results.

''Valiant Hearts: The Great War'' is a side-scrolling 2D adventure/puzzle game developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Creator/{{Ubisoft}}, set during the Great War; otherwise known as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. The story tells the tale of a number of people who are involved in the war, and their points of view: A drafted German soldier, his French father-in-law, a Belgian nurse, a rescue dog, an American soldier, and more. Valiant Hearts tells of the impact of the war, and how it tore apart lives, and formed blood brothers on the smoke-filled battlefields of Western Europe. It also makes the point that the moral dimensions of the Great War's Western Front were ones of degree, rather than the absolutes on the Great War's other fronts or those so infamously imposed by Nazi Germany and its [[TheHolocaust genocidal programmes]] in the Second World War. [[note]] Yes, this is a gross oversimplification on the Great War side given the Ottomans' genocidal programmes and the Hindenburg-Ludendorff Junta's plans for postwar ethnic cleansing to make Baltic States into ethnically pure German-only territories. And yes, it is also a gross oversimplification on the Second World War side given that none of the Allies fought - or made any physical efforts - to save other countries' people from oppression or extermination (of course, claiming otherwise made it almost ridiculously easy to secure the moral high ground in the propaganda war). By definition, generalizing leaves out important details [[/note]]

** One important aspect of WWI's trench warfare that the game didn't really touch on was the ever-terrifying presence of snipers. It could be that getting randomly killed at any point in a level would have been too frustrating to players. [[spoiler: in reality, the snipers tend to pick off important people (like officers), not random grunts.]]

* BigBad: Baron Von Dorf, in a sense. He's the commander of Karl's regiment, and is noted for being a ruthless CombatPragmatist unafraid of using toxic gas. Of course, this was before the concept of gas being against the rules of war was invented, and so he may just be a technophile using the most advanced weapons of his day to win the day for Germany as quick as possible, protecting his own troops in the process.

*BlindingBangs: Save for the children and Freddie's younger brother, all of the character's eyeballs are obscured by either hair, head wear or just represented by a line.

* ChekhovsGunman: Anna's father is seen nervously standing among Baron von Dorf's retinue as when Emile is forced to become a cook for the Germans in Act 1 Chapter 2.
* CoolAirship: Von Dorf's Zeppelin.

* DressingAsTheEnemy: After escaping the POW camp and saving a little girl from wolves, Karl first swaps his uniform for a civilian set of clothes. After running into Anna and Walt on the way to Emile's farm, Karl steals a police uniform and after that a French Army enlisted man's uniform. Karl's list of stolen clothes is topped with a French Army officer's uniform, acquired by having Walt spill wine on the guy and then waiting for him to change outfits. Karl and Anna nearly get away unnoticed. The French officer, realizing that his clothes have been stolen, spots them from a balcony and gives chase in a huge armored car (wearing nothing more than his undershirt and underpants).

* ImprovisedWeapon: Varies in form and importance, but one in particular that sticks out is Emile's use of a serving ladle.
* InferredHolocaust: The part in which Anna is traversing Belgium shows the Germans gassing the city (a ''civilian population'') and involves Anna having to save several civilians from certain doom ... and this actually downplays the German atrocities in Belgium. There's a reason historians refer to the events as "The Rape of Belgium".

* MildlyMilitary: Emile, a French soldier, gets away with being out of uniform and not carrying a rifle rather a lot. Ditto Freddie, an American enlisted in the French army who frequently leads infantry charges or infiltrates behind enemy lines bare-chested and armed with nothing but his fists and any explosives he can get his hands on in the field.

* RedShirtArmy: Don't get attached to any friendly soldier you don't know the name of.

** One important aspect of WWI's trench warfare that the game didn't really touch on was the ever-terrifying presence of snipers. It could be that getting randomly killed at any point in a level would have been too frustrating to players.

** ALighterShadeOfGrey: However, only the Germans are shown [[KickTheDog using chemical weapons or bombing civilian population centers.]] [[spoiler: The German Army kills Freddie's wife during a bombing run and kidnaps Anna's father to force him to develop weapons.]]

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Despite being fairly historically accurate, there's more than a few licenses taken that are beyond simple RuleOfCool, such as tanks appearing before their historical debut (and shooting down airplanes to boot). For instance, what appears to be a translation error in the in-game narration and material states casualties as deaths; i.e. 600,000 dead at Verdun, as opposed to 600,000 dead, wounded, and captured, the actual historical number. Oddly, this makes the already infamously bloody UsefulNotes/WorldWarI seem even more gruesome than it actually was.[[note]]The causalities at Verdun are still not confirmed to this day. There's a varieties of reasons for this including ill and wounded soldiers being counted towards causalities, but the battle lasted for so long that these men would be back in the trenches before the end (inevitably some would be wounded or get ill again, being counted twice or more). Other reasons include, causalities mistakenly being brought up on other parts of French's Western front (Churchill's mistake, many historians quoted his statistic). Conservative estimates of causalities were as low as 596,000 with the worst case being 976,000. However, the reports of deaths is more consistent being in the 299,000 to 305,000 range. Still not a small number by any means.[[/note]]

* GrayAndGrayMorality: Goes out of it's way to show that WWI was decidedly *not* a showdown between good and evil.

* InferredHolocaust: The part in which Anna is traversing Belgium shows the Germans gassing the city (a ''civilian population'') and involves Anna having to save several civilians from certain doom ... and this actually downplays the German Atrocities in Belgium. There's a reason historians refer to the events as "The Rape of Belgium".

* NiceHat: A lot, as is to be expected.The game features Adrian helmets, Pickelhauben, Brodie helmets, forage caps, kepis, turbans, aviator caps, busbys, top hats, bowlers...

* WarIsHell: Oh ''boy''. Any history buffs know that World War I was a terrifying war for a number of reasons, including heavy disease, awful living conditions, the every encroaching fear of getting your head blown to bits by a sniper, the loneliness, the huge advances in technology such as the machine gun and flamethrowers, and most of all, the fear of never seeing your loved ones again. ''Valiant'' portrays this trope in all it's awful, sickening glory, and doesn't shirk away from the more human aspects of it either.