Alternate histories often give us the most intriguing settings. Taking what we know and twisting it into a parallel timeline might result in the light-hearted antics of Back to the Future, or skew the world into a terrifying alternative vision of the past or future, bringing us prescient stories like A Handmaid’s Tale or exploring punishing alternatives like The Man in the High Castle.
War Mechanic pictures a world where World War 2 never ended. Here, the Soviets stole the plans to the atomic bomb, but, lacking the scientific might to bring it to fruition, it was never completed. Without that emphatic punctuation to the conflict, it rumbled on, and while the Nazis were dispatched, it ultimately became a war between the US and the Russians, with the US war machine led by now-President Patton.
Within that, War Mechanic takes you to Nordhook. This island-based military outpost has fallen into disrepair, and you’re tasked with pushing the US military front from this remote locale, with economic and technological might the order of the day. Starting off in the opening area for our hands-on session, War Mechanic sees you rebuild, repair and enhance your base of operations, so that you can then push further into the body of the island, unearthing secret tech, or collecting scrap to turn into useful items for the war effort.
Your main character, Jack, is focused, inquisitive and intelligent, making an interesting counterpoint to your weasel-like companion Bill, who oozes underhandedness like a cheap cologne. He’s the one transporting you to the island you’re going to call home for the foreseeable future, and there’s a nice bit of narrative drive to wash over you as the boat careens towards its goal.
War Mechanic has some real Bioshock and Fallout 4 vibes, and its alternate history setting is intriguing, throwing up a variety of questions about this unusual island and its mysteries. Given that both sides during the Second World War utilised island bases, and they’re interesting enough without populating them with killer spider robots and steampunk hardware, it feels as though the team have settled on a perfect setting for their narrative.
We talked to lead developer, Rafał Lewkowicz, who told us, “We like history! We like history a lot! That’s probably the basis for everything here.” It’s clear that the team at Chronospace have a very specific vision of this period of time, and they’re having lots of fun exploring the possibilities that it gives them, in terms of storytelling, and the technology that they’ve created in-game.
You’re equipped with a pistol from the outset, which is absolutely necessary to deal with the spider-like robot drones that have been left to defend the island. They’re a constant source of anxiety, and my favourite moments with them was seeing them scurry off behind a building in the distance, and carefully following in the hope that I could take them out before they ran straight up to me and exploded.
They will home in on your location, and you have to react quickly and decisively unless you want to lose a large chunk of your health. Fortunately, there are plenty of healing packs littered around in this opening area, but it’ll be interesting to see if these become rarer as you advance, ramping up the difficulty. One thing we do know from screenshots is that these spider-bots don’t stay small…
Alongside your pistol, you’ve got a burner, which is good for collecting coal down the mines as much as it is for melting down scrap that you can then turn into other things via the game’s crafting and upgrade mechanics. It doesn’t feel too much like busy work here, and finding a crashed plane blocking the middle of the road that you can then dismantle is plenty of fun.
Towards the end of the demo, you unlock an enhanced German car, and once you’ve found a blueprint and crafted the design, you can stick a handy machine gun on its roof, ideal for the sudden horde of spider-bots that come your way once they hear you. It’s nice to see the team giving players plenty of ways to explore the environment, though the opening area is perhaps slightly too constricted for racing around in your car.
The team tell me that there’s a later desert area, and it feels as though you’re going to get plenty of opportunity to careen across the sand dunes once you reach it, but it would be nice to let loose with the vehicle a little earlier here.
War Mechanic has settled on an intriguing moment in global history to craft its alternative history tale, and after our short time with the game, we’re already keen to see more.
War Mechanic is available to wishlist on Steam, as the team build up to a Kickstarter crowdfunding project in the near future.