Valiant Hearts: The Great War is one of my favourite smaller titles of the mid-2010s. A wonderful World War One ‘war story’ from Ubisoft which saw us take on events from the horrific battlefields of The Great War. A deeply moving story / puzzle adventure that focused on the human side of war, rather than the warfare itself.

A stunningly gorgeous cartoon art-style made the subject matter feel softer, but the stories told about its heroes struck me and others alike deeply. The game had fun, yet simple puzzles that didn’t detract from the semi-fact-based WW1 stories told.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War had a follow up with Coming Home, which I’m yet to play. Though, when I heard a WWII-era spiritual successor, Letters of War was in development I couldn’t wait to play. The evolution of WWII warfare brings opportunity for better set pieces and short action scenes to it’s real-world tale.

Valiant Hearts has a great following and being the inspiration for new projects is a testament to it’s creative storytelling and art-style. Letters of War looks to replicate the emotional journey of its precursor, but does it delver on that promise? Here’s a mostly spoiler-free review.

Story – Not to the Letter

Letters of War is developed by a small studio passionate about the project. It’s a personal tale to the development team, following the tale of daughter Rosie and her father Liam, a fighter in the British Army during the later years of history’s most gruesome conflict.

Rosie is a real, living family member of a developer who suffered tragic trauma during the conflict. Her father, British carpenter, Liam stepped up to the call of duty during the height of the conflict, when the Allied powers began to gain an advantage over the Axis.

Our journey as Liam takes us across real Western Front conflicts, including France and Germany. As the British Army, we also engage in the deadly Sicilian offensive that took place during a turning point of the war. General Montgomery (or Monty, as we Brits remember him) of the British Army features in the game in a small role also.

The game’s name offers a clue to how the story is told, with Liam, Rosie and the mother of the house, Katherine exchanging letters from trench to ‘where the heart is’. There is some chillingly emotional exchanges between the at-war father and young daughter which, as a father of two young children, struck deep.

Though, the letters between father and daughter were the games story highlight, Liam’s adventure seemed to often fall flat with plot points coming to slow, or abrupt endings. I wasn’t actually sure if I’d reached the end of the 3-4 hour campaign, then credits began to roll. Furthermore, we meet various comrades on the journey to victory including Noah and Arthur whose characters needing fleshing out more to make them more interesting encounters.

More immersion breaking, though forgiving for a small studio with tight budget, was the voice acting. Characters, particularly Noah, were poorly acted and thus more annoying than interesting. Also, the few American characters accents didn’t sound, well, very American at all. It made listening to some of the cutscenes a little cringe.

What I did appreciate about Letters of War’s storytelling was its historical notes, detailing key moments relevant to the game. As a WWII nut, I learnt a few new anecdotes from the conflict through these concise, interesting pieces.

Gameplay – Stuck in the Trenches

From a game that sees itself as the spiritual successor to Valiant Hearts, I wasn’t expecting bombastic, action-packed adventure. Though, what Letters of War offers falls far short of my expectations of a game seeking to build on one 10 years old.

Across the relatively short title, there are around 10 set piece moments. Unfortunately, around half of these are the same re-skinned artillery dodging action sequences. Whilst fun and impactful the first time where Liam rushes Rosie to underground safety (see below), by the third time it had worn thin.

There are other action sections including aerial combat, tank warfare and a few others. Sadly, they’re incredibly basic to play and over within several seconds.

Outside of the small action sequences the game largely feels like a walking simulator, with a few puzzles on the way. Entirely competent in their own right, yet sometime lacking any immersible logic.

In one section as a POW we’re trying to escape the camp, however we’re allowed to simply walk round the Commandant’s building freely looking for a key – given the horrific oppressive nature of Nazi concentration camps, this feels a) a massively missed gameplay opportunity; and b) mildly insulting to real-world WWII survivors, which the game itself is centred around.

Visuals and audio – As Delightful as WWII Can Be

Letters of War wears its inspiration on its sleeve and looks all the bit as visually satisfying as its precursor title. The colours popped beautifully on my Steam Deck OLED.

Beautiful 2D drawn environments and characters, animated in an adorable way that dampens the grimness of war and ensures the dramatic focus remains on the tale of Rosie and her father. Each environment we visit has a unique attractive backdrop, be it Normandy, back home in ‘Blighty’ or any other location where we lay muddy boots on the ground.

Aside from my aforementioned issues with voice acting, the game’s soundtrack and audio effects fit the Western Front journey and was a pleasure to listen to throughout.

Performance – Buggy warfare

My biggest issue with Letters of War though, is how buggy and broken the game is. There were countless issues with the game during my playthrough, including progression blocking, my character disappearing and in the below (cropped for spoiler reasons) picture, the game’s final credits listed every developer as ‘name surname’. I’ve never seen anything quite like it

In an early stage, I was tasked with throwing a grenade into an MG nest, only for my player to either 1) disappear; 2) die without being shot; 3) kill the enemy then freeze. After 20 mins of frustrating failure, thankfully a restart of my Steam Deck allowed me to continue.

I’ve previously mentioned the artillery dodging sections. In several of those, I would be a good distance from the blast and die; whereas sometimes I was hit by the blast and survived.

Though, what irritated me most was the game’s ‘skip ahead’ dialogue button – pretty standard in any game – makes the game’s text bug out. I lost an awful lot of critical narrative dialogue, simply because I’m a faster reader than the game’s narration.

Conclusion – Stuck Behind the Fog of War

The unfortunate feel of what could have been hits me the most with Letters of War. It’s hard not to compare it to Valiant Hearts: The Great War when it unashamedly discloses itself as a spiritual successor.

I love anything WWII related – books, games and movies alike – and there is some good storytelling here, but too many plot opportunities that made me frustrated. Though the drab gameplay and set-piece moments, awful bugs and abrupt ending lead Letters of War to a game that falls short on many fronts.

The developers have released a day one patch. I’m unaware what bugs I experienced will have been fixed. But in the state I played the game, I can’t recommend Letters of War and if you haven’t, just go and play Valiant Hearts.

Letters of War releases 25 September 2025 on PC (Steam). This review was played entirely on Steam Deck in handheld (not docked) mode. A 10% launch discount is available for the game.

Gamer Social Club would like to thank developer / publisher, Wood Cabin Games for the review code used for the purpose of review.