Considering the millions of dollars spend to create and promote games on the scale of Assassin's Creed Unity, Far Cry IV, and The Crew, It was refreshing to see the most emotionally effecting games featured at Ubisoft's Press Event, and arguably all of E3, was the World War I game Valiant Hearts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP8q5F6dFqQ It's okay if you need a tissue. Developed by Ubisoft Montpellier via the UbiArt framework that made Rayman Legends a visual masterpiece, Valiant Hearts looks to be a bittersweet tale of friendship, remorse, dedication, duty, and loss on the battlefield. But what's the jaw-dropping factor here, aside from the incredible narration and art direction? The audience's reaction. When you hear the phrase 'deafening silence', you can point to the moments after the trailer's debut as a perfect example. Everyone was blown away and didn't know what to think. Thankfully Aisha Tyler, being the only person on stage at any of the E3 press events with actual stage experience, handled the situation deftly, cracking a small, inoffensive joke with just the right tone to let the audience off the hook before they started crying buckets and calling their wives and children to say they love them. In a world where the games we play are constantly challenging to land head shots, and are simultaneously desperate to be photo realistic and grotesquely hyper-violent, seeing a title that brings honest to goodness humanity to the people fighting in a war was a heart-crushing breath of fresh air that the industry, players, and the world could use a lot more of.
