In 1908, White Star and Harland & Wolff laid the keels down for the largest ships ever built up to that point. The first was to be named Olympic, the name ship of the class. The second you've probably never heard of. In 1911, Olympic makes her maiden voyage, and is such a success that White Star approved the construction of a third ship, the ultimate form of the older sisters, correcting all design and decorative shortcomings to make the final word in luxury.
In February 1914, this ship, Britannic, is launched with high expectations.
In July, 1914, the world goes mad, and the incomplete liner is set aside, fitting out going in fits and starts as manpower becomes available between war demands and conscription saps the workforce.
In 1915, the Gallipoli campaign necessitates the need for large ships to carry the wounded back home. Britannic's fine fittings are removed, and she is converted into a hospital ship.
In November, 1916, after completing five successful voyages, Britannic strikes a mine. Despite all of the improvements made in the wake of the Titanic disaster, she goes under in 55 minutes. Barely documented, the world goes for over a century barely noticing the ship, never realizing the loss of What Could Have Been.
Until now.
Britannic: Patroness of the Mediterranean
(available for Windows, macOS, and the VR headsets HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Oculus Rift), is less a video "game" and more of a virtual museum experience. The exteriors, as well as many interiors of the ship — both as a hospital ship, and as an ocean liner, all based on meticulous research of archival blueprints and designs — are recreated in exacting detail in Unreal Engine 4, in some small way resurrecting the Britannic and showing her as she both was, and as she should have been.
Along with the virtual museum, the game comes with a sinking simulation, where you have to find a way off of the ship as she sinks in Real Time.
The game also serves as a proof of concept for indie developer Vintage Digital Revival's larger and more ambitious project in the works, centered around Britannic's infamous older sister ship: Titanic: Honor and Glory.
This game provides examples of:
- Apron Matron: see Easter Egg.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Britannic. Even with her fittings stripped and her organ gutted, she still carries a certain beauty about her. And even at night, with her string of bright green Hospital Ship lighting and illuminated Red Crosses, even then she is beautiful in her own way.
- The Chew Toy: In Demo 3 for Titanic Honor And Glory (an environmental demo to showcase the work they have put into recreating the ship, a full 2% of the ship's interiors... it's a lot more than it sounds), we are introduced to Robin Darcy as our stand-in player character, an oblivious, foppish buffoon of a man working as a junior Board of Trade examiner. Reading between the lines of his sporadic comments, his wife cannot stand him, and is strongly implied to be having an affair with the barber, and that their son (who also has little like for Robin) was fathered by said barber. Walking into one of the outhouses generates a remark that it "reminds [him] of [his] childhood," apparently didn't think to ask a girl if she was interested in him before showing up at her door all dressed up for a date, and by the time of Demo 3 he missed the memo that Titanic's Sea Trials (originally scheduled for April First) are delayed for 24 hours.
It continues in BPOTM: By August 1915, it is suggested that his wife may have left him, and he is rooming with low lives (that may be sexually abusing him if the "privy pinchers" comment means anything), and going by his reaction to seeing a bunch of postcards, survived not only the Titanic disaster, but was on the Oceanic when she ran aground, along with incidents involving two other liners.
Come November 1916 - just days before Britannic strikes the mine - Robin mentions having been court-martialled (potentially for the loss of Oceanic), and is likely going to be onboard when she sinks. Given his luck, it would be just perfect for him to be in the first lifeboat that leaves the ship... Just to get chewed up by the propeller. Though given his luck, it's likely he'd survive that too. - Easter Egg: In the tour modes for the original release version of the game, you are restricted to only a few spaces. But, with some know-how, players can break the game and move the camera beyond the confines of the space they are in, and 'explore' the extremely minimal, low polygon, under construction spaces of the ship model. Knowing this, the Dev Team included, in strategically placed locations, this picture of the director, Tom Lynskey, dressed in a flour-caked apron and armed with a rolling pin, and giving you a look of parental disapproval with the text: Hey you, you shouldn't be in here."
- In the RMS configuration, there is a renaissance painting recreation on the wall, featuring a woman with an exposed breast. Maybe in a bid to avoid issues with any YouTubers or Twitch streamers showing the exposed nipple, or out of cheeky fun, the team got creative.
- In the RMS configuration, there is a renaissance painting recreation on the wall, featuring a woman with an exposed breast. Maybe in a bid to avoid issues with any YouTubers or Twitch streamers showing the exposed nipple, or out of cheeky fun, the team got creative
- Ghost Ship: Not literally, and not historically. But the player is the only one on board during the sinking simulation, with all the equipment moving on its own.
- Real Time: The sinking experience is in real time, from about fifteen minutes before the mine impact to a minute or so after she slips beneath the surface. It starts out quite peaceful, and it's easy for the player to be lulled into a false sense of security and forget that, oh dear, there's an explosion coming, making the detonation as quite a shock. And it's a little terrifying how quickly the ship takes on a noticeable list, and how rapid the final plunge happens once the welldeck floods. And how easy it is to miss the last boat to leave the ship with how efficiently the evacuation happens. Basically, by the time the forward well deck (where cargo hatches 2 and 3 are) is flooded, it's to late to get into a boat.
- Scenery Porn: Everything, from the interiors and especially the Night Time Exterior areas in Tour Mode are simply breathtaking.
- Spin-Off: The game itself is a spin-off of Vintage Digital Revival's even more ambitious project, Titanic: Honor And Glory. In 2016 the team released a Real-Time sinking video for the 100th anniversary of the ship's loss. It was so popular that the team started seriously looking at the idea of a full game set around the Britannic.
- Starship Luxurious: Well, not starship, but Britannic in her ocean liner glory is a sight of The Edwardian Era at its finest.
- Stepford Smiler: Um... Robin? What did you do that would require Britannic's morgue?
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Unexpected Character: As a mild surprise, Robin returns from Demo 3 to walk the decks of Britannic.
