It Takes a War Review (PC)

It Takes a War, by Thomas Mackinnon, is a game – or experience – that you should play.

The end.

Alright, a little more then. Though to properly explain why you should play it would be to ruin it. At just under an hour in length, ITaW is very much an experiential game, one that goes to places you won’t expect, and one that, when all is said and done, will leave you with something worth thinking about.

Lofty goals for a multiplayer Counter Strike clone, right? Well, all I’ll say is things may not be as they seem, and it’s all the better for it.

I don’t want to spoil anything, so consider this your warning – below will explain some of the reasons why you want to check out the game, but I can’t stress enough the best way to play is to just do it, no reading or watching ahead of time.

A clear influence here is the wonderful Stanley Parable. Mackinnon uses fourth wall breaking tricks throughout to really hammer home the themes of the game (which again, we won’t get into). As early as the menus we’re treated to comedic moments, such as if we say we’re streaming and get prompted with all manner of permissions that actually feed back into the narrative later in the game.

The shooting, albeit basic (and most likely intentionally a bit cack) serves as a simple way into the experience. By the time we get several rounds deep, it’s clear there’s more going on here and the chatter from the other players is both genuine in its delivery and skewed to make us uneasy at what is coming next.

Mackinnon clearly knows how to push at the fringes of what we’re expecting, and waits just long enough to have us thinking we’ve started to get a bit tired of the same old thing before dropping some serious weirdness on us. Again, it’s a short game but also one that’s perfectly paced. 

And the tale here is genuinely affecting in its delivery, with one scene in particular late on providing a moment of reflection for me (and I imagine, most players of ITaW ).

Conclusion

To sum it up as spoiler-free as I can, if you like a bit of off the wall gaming with something to say, and are willing to spend an hour just going along for the ride, then ITaW is an easy recommend. Just do others a favour and tell them to play it with no prior knowledge as well.

This game was tested and reviewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.