Dearest Mother, Verdun is a very tough video game,
It all began as I was crouched in a muddy crater, having just spawned into Verdun for the very first time. My buddy, Steve, was the squad’s officer/mobile spawn point, and was crouched next to me. He had his map out and was trying to figure out which direction we were supposed to be advancing in. I was busy digging through the options menu turning down the game’s volume in order to better hear Steve. At the rim of the crater a random teammate was prone, taking occasional shots at some unseen enemy.
All around us was the crackle-popping of WWI-era rifles and the occasional deep-bass thud of an explosion. It sounded pretty rough out there, so I had no problem just hanging low until we figured out what we should be doing.
New orders came in before Steve figured anything out: advance on the enemy position. Before we could even really figure out where the enemy position was, we heard the whistles. Whistles mean run.
The gunfire around us kicked up considerably, people from all over started shouting. Steve, in a rush to prepare, accidentally hit the wrong key and his soldier put on a gas mask, significantly obscuring his first-person view, but at least he was safe from a gas attack. I slammed the C-key, stood up from my crouch and begin to sprint out of the crater. As I passed the teammate who was prone, I realized he was dead. I don’t know when he even died; he didn’t shout, didn’t flop around, nothing, he was just laying there alive one moment, and laying there dead the next.
The realization that death is instant and omnipresent hit me just before the bullet did. My body crumpled to the ground just behind Steve.
He did not make it much further.
Do not worry for me, Dearest Mother, for the gods of Verdun smiled upon me and I was quickly resurrected miraculously back behind the front lines, only to meet similar fates again and again and again and again. Here in Verdun, nowhere is safe for very long. We abandon and reclaim the same trenches, seemingly endlessly. Dying for every inch of turf along the way.
Unlike the other battles I’ve fought in, where I’ve answered the Call of Duty or fought bravely across other Battlefields, death in Verdun is so anonymous, and instant, that it really gets to you. You rarely see the person who killed you, nor have any idea where they even were, and there is absolutely nothing to do but keep trying. After awhile you feel that everything you do is pointless, there is no point in being here. You’re just going to die anyway.
After an hour in Verdun, my morale was shredded. And then it hit me, —no, not another bullet, but the sheer genius behind what the developers have done. Verdun, the bloodiest (1.25 million casualties over ten months of constant fighting) battle of World War I, was being digitally simulated in video game form. I was just one more kid, with a pathetic gun, who didn’t really know what I was doing there to begin with. I just knew that I was probably going to die, and the best thing to do would be to hide in my trench, sink into the mud, and hope the artillery killed me instantly.
No other game had ever made me feel that way before.
Send my regards to Father and Sister,
Your Son,
Thomas
Verdun currently available on Steam.
A copy of Verdun was given to Epic Brew by the Developers for the purpose of coverage
