All Quiet in the Trenches is a noisy WW1 experience

Trenches. As a wargamer, when I see or hear the word “Trenches”, in any context, I automatically think of WWI. When I was offered “All Quiet in the Trenches”, made by  ‘Totally Not Aliens’, I pounced on it immediately — hoping to have a fun game while advancing my WW I knowledge. Plus, as a bonus, getting to play with armies dealing with the Big War/The War to End All Wars.

Until this game, my entire caché of WWI information was limited to trench warfare, Sopwith Camels, mustard gas, hand grenades, and the constant rain of artillery. Yes, I realize the title of the game is a take on All Quiet on the Western Front.

As this is a game about stress and fatigue, they intentionally left out the zoom function that you’d normally find in strategic, or tactical, games. From the deveveloper: “You haven’t missed a button or anything. There’s no overview in the game. Although we understand that it could be useful from time to time, we deliberately didn’t include it to maintain the feeling of not being able to see the whole picture and having to make decisions based on the few meters around you that you would most likely be able to see if you were actually there.” Also included are fact-based splash screens throughout — an early tell-tale component of loading screens in world war-based games.

All Quiet in the Trenches is about emotions and controlling the pressure that your units are under, you won’t fail here because you didn’t quite get them into the right type of cover, but you will fail because they find themselves overwhelmed either strategically or emotionally. If they’re stressed then they’ll falter and struggle, and when they’re like that you’ll quickly lose your position. This adds another layer to the juggling act of small-scale skirmishes, even before you take the rather deadly nature of early 1900s trench warfare into consideration.

So far, I’ve only racked up a few hours of playtime, and while I’ve found it enjoyable, there are quite a few elements that I — as a wargamer — find limiting and difficult. There are brief periods when you can see through the smoke, so that helps you… a little. I can’t wait to play this when finished! It’s a small team, but seemingly very intelligent and passionate. If you have a long Wishlist (as I do), you just wait until 2027!

So, with all of that in mind, be forewarned, my friends, about any form of… let me see… I don’t know… (*cough, cough*) traps? Harsh trench stops— which is one of their kind of catch and pin down (not catch and release by any reason!), but forming yet another way to annihilate you.

All Quiet in the Trenches is available through Steam Early Access now.