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Advertisement feature from War Hospital
Save lives in the Great War with this fascinating new video game
In the realistic management simulator War Hospital, you’ll experience World War I like never before
This new game flips the script on what you may have come to expect from war-based interactive experiences. Of course, war has long been a source of inspiration for video game designers, but even if you've played hundreds of war video games before, you've probably never experienced one like this.
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War Hospital, which has been developed by Poland’s Brave Lamb Studio, invites you to take on the role of a retired combat medic who is drafted back into service in 1918. With World War I entering its brutal, final stages, you must manage the tricky tactics and moral dilemmas of frontline medical care. But will you manage to fight for life while so many are shooting to kill?
Explore a rarely seen side of an under-explored conflict
While there have been countless games focused on World War II, many of them geared around shooting Nazis or tactically overcoming them, War Hospital is a very fresh proposition. Not only does it focus on World War I – a comparatively unexplored war in the videogame realm – it also offers a totally different gameplay experience to your average war game.
As a management game positioned from a unique perspective, you'll find yourself participating in this conflict in a way that you may have never considered before. Instead of worrying about how many enemies you can eliminate and how much ground you can gain, with War Hospital it's all about how many lives you can save as Armistice Day nears.
You'll be using the medical techniques of the time to get as many soldiers as possible back on their feet and back to the front lines. With the end of the war inching ever closer, morale is a major currency, along with boots on the ground – and you can influence both. Your key weapons include your time management skills, your nose for prioritisation, and your ability to make snap decisions when there are multiple lives at stake.
Challenging gameplay and moral choices
With the violence rarely letting up, you'll face plenty of tough choices and many challenges. You’ll need to recruit and assign doctors, nurses, medics, engineers, and scouts – all of which can alter the outcome of vital situations – while battling fatigue and death.
As the last bastion of humanity amid the bloodshed, hundreds of lives will be in your hands and the onus is on you to make the right calls in high-pressure situations – where resources are limited, and time is of the essence.
The game’s action is displayed from an isometric perspective (think real-time strategy games such as Total War), with eye-catching 3D graphics and 13,000 lines of in-game text to guide you. And with a rich narrative leading you through the game’s different scenarios, your efforts will be rewarded with story advancement and positive outcomes for your patients.
This is a war-themed game that champions life rather than death, making it a challenging, but ultimately rewarding, experience for players.
Historical and technical realism
War Hospital is steeped in authenticity. The involvement of the Imperial War Museum adds legitimacy, and through careful collaboration with some of the world's foremost World War I experts, the developers have strived towards realism in all sorts of areas. For instance, just as it did in real life, the medical technology at your disposal develops as the war rages on, giving you different tools to unlock as you progress.
The game goes to great efforts to reflect the diversity of the era too, with many of Britain's international allies being represented in the game. So, in addition to Brits and Scots, soldiers from Australia, India and elsewhere in the British empire of the period are present, with unique character designs and voiced accents.
This realism even drips down into the musical score, which includes the sound of a ticking watch. This both adds tension and gives a nod to the fact that wristwatches became commonplace during the Great War. No detail is too small to be considered in this game!
Are you ready to save lives with War Hospital?
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