WW2 survival game reinvents itself, turns to Witcher writers for "darker" story

You may remember War Mechanic from its reveal last year. It looked like a fairly standard survival game with an interesting alt-history premise. World War 2 never ended, and now the war is fought with robots by your side as the military has been privatized. However, after a quiet year, developer Chronospace has reimagined the game to take on a whole new lease of life. New writers are on board to soup up the narrative and new mechanics are involved to make the gameplay more exciting. It's basically a whole new game.

Chronospace dubs this as a re-reveal for War Mechanic, and I must say this trailer leaves a better impression. From the new-look crafting, to customizable vehicles that you can cruise around the open world in, to the man-versus-robot FPS action, War Mechanic looks like an entirely different game a year on.

It'll take a lot to become one of the best WW2 games on the market, but the alt-history approach and Fallout-style post-apocalypse will make it stand out. If the trailer wasn't enough to pique your interest, however, some of the additions might do the trick.

Personally, I'm most excited by Jacek Komuda and Maciej Jurewicz joining the writing team, as both are veterans of The Witcher 1 and 2. They join a team that already houses former CD Projekt Red and FromSoftware developers to incorporate a strong, "darker" narrative into the game, which now blends classic survival mechanics and base building with exploration, FPS action, and vehicle combat.

It's great to see a game revamped like this, especially when War Mechanic looks to have seriously benefited from it. Photorealism isn't the be all and end all in games-Hollow Knight: Silksong proves that-but the environments and robot enemies look way better thanks to the move to Unreal Engine 5.5 here.

War Mechanic also promises dangerous territories, eccentric NPCs, and rogue war machines. It's the latter that are particularly exciting, especially the spider-like mech that crawls into shot at the end of the new trailer. If this game can nail every element, it promises to be an exciting addition to the survival genre.

War Mechanic is coming soon to Steam, but if you can't wait for that indeterminate length of time, try some of the best survival games in the meantime. Alternatively, check out our list of upcoming PC games for more goodies to look forward to.

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