Playing through to Europe? Depiction and Reception of the First World War in the Videogame Valiant Hearts

ABSTRACT

The video game Valiant Hearts, released in 2014 for the First World War centenary, sold over 2.5 million copies and can be considered one of the major contemporary pop-culture historical representations of this war shaping public interpretations of this event. The paper explores how Valiant Hearts, as a kind of informal institution affecting historical remembrance, constructs and encourages a specific framing through the deployment of Europeanizing elements of anti-war narrative, Franco-German reconciliation narrative, and the de-nationalizing logic that indirectly legitimizes the European integration. The analysis of the videogame in the context of the historical film Merry Christmas (2005) is complemented with a close reading of illustrative empirical examples of Let’s Plays (paratextual user-generated videos where people record themselves while playing videogames) that indicate how Europeans of different national backgrounds interact with the game Valiant Hearts. The examined cases point to how the everyday, seemingly apolitical leisure activity of playing and watching videogames dealing with history can advance Europeanizing narratives and present occasions for informal Europeanization.

KEYWORDS:

• Valiant hearts
• informal europeanization
• history
• videogames
• Let’s Plays
• First World War

When thinking about the importance of a single videogame set in the First World War, one might quickly jump to the conclusion that its relevance and impact are easily dwarfed when compared to events like the meeting of Hollande and Merkel at Verdun in 2016. This paper will argue that a low-key phenomenon like a videogame can have a surprisingly significant impact, which in the end might overshadow high-level official political commemorations of the war, like the one mentioned. It will explore how the informal free-time domain of playing videogames, and the videogame Valiant Hearts: The Great War/ Soldats Inconnus: Memoire de la Grande Guerre (Ubisoft Montpellier, 2014) in particular, through the deployment of multiple Europeanizing elements invite and facilitate a more European remembering and that the very act of playing of this game by people across Europe constitute a form of informal Europeanization.

The paper situates the use of the concept of Europeanization in the domain of history, discusses the complex nature of the First World War memory in Europe and why the medium of videogames to a large extent avoided representing this period. Further on, it argues that Valiant Hearts, a video game with a significant commercial success on an international level, has a Europeanizing effect in the sense of presenting the First World War as a European war which has an impact on the interpretation of the war’s history beyond Europe. Most importantly, it shows how Valiant Hearts, similarly yet differently to the 2005 film Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noël constructs European similarities,and through the elements of the anti-war narrative, the Franco-German reconciliation narrative, and the de-nationalizing logic operates as an informal institution with a Europeanizing effect. The final part uses specific identified parts of the game that invite meaning-making interpretations corresponding to one or multiple of the identified Europeanizing elements to analyze the reactions of people from different European national contexts who play Valiant Hearts or watch others play it via online videos called Let’s Plays. The limited sample of French, German, Czech and Polish cases serves to illustrate the diversity in possible interpretations and receptions of Valiant Hearts without claiming any representativity for the whole of Europe. The conclusion discusses the results and how the everyday leisure activity of playing videogames in general can be an area for informal Europeanization through shared experiences and interactions.

Bahar Rumelili argued that successful conflict reconciliation requires popular support and memory work (2018, 286) and a videogame like Valiant Hearts, which sold over 2.5 million copies (Takahashi 2015), can be said to have a major impact on how this conflict is remembered, especially by the younger generations – reaching them through more informal means that may be more acceptable than official commemorations, museums, etc. While stereotypically associated only with young and male individuals, the demographics of videogame consumption are much more diverse: as of 2020, 50% of Europeans aged 6 to 64 played videogames, their average age was 31.3 years, and 47% of them were women (ISFE 2021). Playing videogames is an everyday free-time activity that has developed its own rich international culture around it, involving dedicated media, discussions on online fora and other aspects. Violent videogames have been shown to be a potential negative risk factor for young people in influencing the development of violent attitudes and behaviors – due to their interactive nature, more so than media like film and television (McLean and Griffiths 2013). Greitemeyer and Mügge have however also shown the potential of some videogames to encourage pro-social behavior (2014). Iro Filippaki showed how Valiant Hearts used affect to achieve innovative forms of the First World War remembrance, which allow to express difficult subjects and afford a post-humanist perspective (2018). It is therefore not unreasonable to assume that an anti-war framing of the First World War violence driven by nationalistic ideologies in Valiant Hearts can have a positive effect in reinforcing anti-war attitudes and fostering the idea and the desirability of the peaceful reconciliation and cohabitation in Europe among European players.

Europeanization is mostly understood as a political science concept that, while having multiple definitions and multiple policy areas of application, usually refers to a process of change that occurs in the interaction of the supranational European institutions and those of member states. EU institutions have also been shown to have a (re)socializing effect on civil servants that involve them (Trondal 2004). When it comes to policy on historical remembrance and education, compared to other areas, the EU institutions are, due to the reluctance of national actors to delegate power in these domains, not as active (Olsen 2002). Still, the potential significance of historical narratives for the legitimization of the European project has not been completely overlooked, as illustrate the policies of European Places of Memory and Active European Remembrance framework (Littoz-Monnet 2012). The long-time dominance of the Holocaust as a singular reference point and a tragedy that has to be remembered and never repeated, still holds but has been in competition with alternative historical narratives, such as the Two Totalitarianisms framework, advanced mainly by the newer Central and Eastern European member states present in a series of resolutions on the occasion of the anniversary of the Second World War, most lately the one ‘On the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe’ adopted in September 2019 (Barile 2021).

All the examples mentioned fall into the most indirect and weakest type of Europeanization, as distinguished by Knill and Lehmkuhl (2002). These aim at changing the beliefs and expectations of actors to support future integration and build capacities for it. This process is in no way guaranteed or straightforward. Empirical research has shown that reminding Europeans about the destruction of the Second World War does not work as an automatic and universal legitimizing tactic, as it only increases support for European cooperation in some areas and this effect does not hold for all Member States, nor is it equally effective across the whole political spectrum (Vries Catherine 2020).

The concept of Europeanization has also eventually been adopted and applied in a modified meaning by historians (Conway and Patel 2010). Hirschhausen and Patel defined it as ‘a variety of political, social, economic and cultural processes that promote (or modify) a sustainable strengthening of intra-European connections and similarities through acts of emulation, exchange and entanglement and experienced and labeled as “European” in the course of history’ (2010). The examples of Europeanization in history predating the post-Second World War integration have enriched the perspectives on the concept and highlighted a more problematic and darker side to Europeanisation, often uncritically associated with only positive connotations. The shared experience of European colonialism and both World Wars can be interpreted as cases of Europeanization through violence (Gerwarth and Malinowski 2010). The colonial expansion, while pursued under hostile competition between European powers, also led to a common experience of a violent conflict, subjugation, and exploitation of the colonized populations. Gerwarth and Malinowski further argue the colonial experience helped to shape the very idea of Europeanness in opposition to the non-European populations as the threatening ‘other’ (2010, 194). The connection of European integration and colonialism in the twentieth century was also analyzed by Hansen and Jonsson in their book Eurafrica (2014).

The First World War specifically makes for an interesting and ambiguous moment in the history of Europeanization. It can be considered the major de-Europeanizing event that disturbed the Europeanization of the nineteenth century. Antagonistic national memories of the First World War in the 1920s and 1930s also tore the European continent further apart, resulting in the bloodiest war in European and world history. Gerwarth and Malinowski however argue that the First World War also led to a form of Europeanization through the shared experiences of war and massive movements, both voluntary and involuntary, across the borders (2010). More recently, theFirst World War anniversary commemorations have been used by European political leaders to legitimize the European Union and to argue for the necessity of continuing peaceful cooperation.

Differing and difficult memories of the Great War

While the conflict inspired various movements encouraging European cooperation (not only in a pacific way as shows the case of anti-Bolshevik White International), official post-war commemorations directly after the First World War have been used for nationalistic mobilization purposes, further driving de-Europeanization (Gerwarth and Malinowski 2010, 198, 202). The significant dissatisfaction with the result of the First World War fueled other problems in post-war Europe and contributed significantly to the overall destabilization, the rise of totalitarian regimes, and finally the outbreak of the Second World War. Both Italy and Germany, while on different sides of the First World War, saw the spread of national myths and narratives (‘Dolchstoßlegende’ or ‘stab in the back myth’ in the German case and ‘vittoria mutilate’ or ‘mutilated victory’ in the Italian one) around revenge and toppling of the unfavorable results of the post-war Versailles System. Even other countries, such as France, held a deeply nationalistic and antagonistic perspective on the conflict in the 1920s and 1930s.

Following the end of the Second World War, the memory of the First World War has been transformed to serve as places for reconciliation, especially between France and Germany with iconic meetings of their leaders, president Mitterrand and chancellor Kohl in 1984, repeated by their successors Hollande and Merkel for the occasion of the conflict’s centenary. After a century since the outbreak of the First World War, the ways of remembering of this conflict have changed completely and are used by European leaders to keep the peace and European project together. The First World War has been commemorated across Europe with countless events and activities. These framed the conflict in different manners. Some, like probably the most monumental and physically imposing case – the Ring of Memory constructed in 2014 in Nord Pas-de-Calais, France took an explicitly European view. Another example of this European perspective can be the Europeana 1914–1918 project of digitalization and publication of European-wide primary and secondary sources from national libraries and similar institutions. Other framed the First World War from a more national perspective. The dominant way of commemoration however emphasized the subnational or local perspective (Winter 2017).

A major focus point of the First World War commemoration is the large number of human losses it entailed with a possible uniting perspective that all sides suffered terribly. This emphasis on human rights and the suffering of victims in the form of a cosmopolitan memory can help construct common narratives but is not unproblematic as it may fail to address and reflect different, more conflictual (Bull and Lauge Hansen 2016) but also existing sentiments and perspectives on the First World War history, which might cause frustration and the rejection of the dominant narrative.

For all the Western European countries (in contrast with Eastern Europe) Jay Winter claims it can be said that the memory of the First World War has become secularized and de-sanctified, with the dead being treated as victims rather than martyrs (Winter 2017). While probably no longer (as) sacred, less traditional and disrespectful treatment of the subject of the First World War still causes significant public outrage even in Western Europe. A twitter marketing campaign for the videogame Battlefield 1 (EA DICE, 2016) ‘#justWWIthings’ timed in proximity to the Remembrance Sunday in the United Kingdom provoked an outcry of criticism for being tone-deaf and had to be taken down in less than 24 hours (Makuch 2016).

This incident points to one of the reasons why the First World War has not been a frequent setting for historical videogames. The playful nature associated with the medium and the fear of disrespecting the subject meant that in comparison to the Second World War, very few games chose this period (Chapman 2016). Chris Kempshall also pointed out that the internally conflicted and relatively more problematic memories of the First World War (compared to the Second World War) in various national settings and the nature of the war as a relatively static conflict further hindered its use in the medium (2015). The reluctance to use the First World War setting also had purely commercial reasons, with studios being afraid the American public, a major consumer market, would not react well to a product set in a war that had been generally quite unknown in the US (Lalu 2014). This trend has changed with the centenary of the war and the breakthrough of the first major videogame Valiant Hearts in 2014, which achieved both critical and commercial success selling over 2.5 million copies. Valiant Hearts was pitched already in 2008 and full production started in 2012 with cooperation with the production team behind the Apocalypse: WW1 (2014) documentary TV-series (Kempshall 2020). Being a linear single-player, story-driven game, it has also so-far offered arguably the most suitable video-ludic representation of the First World War adaptable for remediation through Let’s Plays counting millions of views and tens of thousands of comments. Compared to other major First World War video games it is also unique in its anti-war framing that refuses the logic of nationalisms.

The First World War as a (Western-)European War

Valiant Hearts is an adventure puzzle videogame set during the First World War from its start in 1914 until spring 1917. The story revolves around an ensemble of international characters that the player controls in a predetermined linear order. Key to the game’s plot is the family of a French farmer Emile Chaillon, living in Saint Mihiel near the border with Germany. After the outbreak of hostilities, Emile’s German son-in-law Karl is deported and hence separated from his wife Marie and their son Victor. This micro event of a family tragedy stands as a symbol of the de-Europeanization occurring on a much greater scale.

The story of Valiant Hearts focuses exclusively on Europe and specifically on the Western Front. This limited focus on a European part of a World War is not uncommon and has been present in previous major pop culture products dealing with the First World War, such as Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front or the more recent 2005 film Merry Christmas. While the film manages to involve a French, a German and a British (mainly Scottish) perspective, it fails to provide a truly pan-European point of view, as it does not resonate with the Italian experience and many others from different fronts. Valiant Hearts also deals exclusively with the Western Front and is hence similarly limited. Both the film and the game can also be considered to have a noticeable French perspective imprint, even though there is an attempt to go beyond this national perspective. Merry Christmas had an international production but was directed by Christian Carion, a French filmmaker. Valiant Hearts comes from an international company Ubisoft but was developed in what can be considered a relatively French environment of studio Ubisoft Montpellier in cooperation with the French national umbrella institution for the anniversary commemorations, Mission Centenaire. It can be said that the production of media representations like Valiant Hearts and Merry Christmas reinforce the Europeanization of the dominant historical framings and narratives on the global scale as they might be the sources of information and interpretation of the First World War for people living beyond Europe.

Considering their production and assumed audience, the focus on Western Europe in both Valiant Hearts and Merry Christmas is understandable but is not the only way how pop culture media can represent the First World War. The videogame Battlefield 1 chooses a different perspective and also covers parts of the war that took place in the Middle East and generally highlights the worldwide scale diminishing the framing as a European conflict. Valiant Hearts, while focusing only on the Western Front, tries to do justice to the war beyond Europe as it also represents colonial forces from Africa, Canada and India as non-playable characters and Freddie, an African-American volunteer as a key character controlled by the player. The deployment of colonial soldiers on European soil in the First World War has been controversial and considered by some as breaking of the then understood, ‘European rules of war’ (Gerwarth and Malinowski 2010, 197). The prominent place of a black soldier on the cover of Battlefield 1 and in its marketing sparked online controversies claiming the game is ‘blackwashing history’ and ‘insults the memory of European heroes’ who died in the war. This backlash toward factually correct inclusive memory was argued to be a proof that the First World War remains largely a ‘white mythic space’ (Quiroga 2022, 2018). Valiant Hearts has not been a source of such controversy. This may be explained by the less visible positions POC have in Valiant Hearts, greater commercial success and mainstream nature of Battlefield 1 and also by the normalization of anti-minority rhetoric online in the US and beyond between the games’ releases (2014–2016).

Constructing Europeanness in the media representations of the First World War

The film Merry Christmas depicts the Christmas Truce of 1914 and the fraternization among soldiers from both sides that occurred there. It uses this true historical incident that took place at multiple locations of the Western Front to present a vision of a common European identity based mainly on Christianity and a common cultural heritage that can make a peaceful coexistence of Europeans possible (Bächle 2014). This way of constructing European identity might be exclusive in opposition to other groups by relying on the Christian religion and other aspects not necessarily shared by all Europeans today. According to Maja Bächle, rather than focusing on common culture and Christian roots that fail to serve as a sufficient basis for European identity, the First World War could better serve in a media representation as a justification for the European integration if used to denounce the horrors of war (Bächle 2014, 87–88). The framing of the First World War that Valiant Hearts uses corresponds well to what Bächle argued would be effective, deploying some while avoiding other elements used by Merry Christmas.

The clear anti-war message present in the game Valiant Hearts has a direct link to the legitimizing narrative of the European Union as a peace project. The justification of the EU’s Nobel Peace Prize mentions the overcoming of Franco-German hostilities, of which the First World War was a key part. The legitimization narrative for European integration in the immediate post-Second World War period has been strongly connected to and constructed around the need for peace (Baldoli and Radaell 2019, 1175). It remains an important question whether, despite the recent Nobel award (2012), this legitimizing argument still resonates as strongly today, and particularly among younger generations that cannot remember the horrors of the Second World War.

The gameplay rules of Valiant Hearts, with a single exception at the end, categorically forbid the player from killing anyone. This mechanic supports the anti-war message in the game’s story and the critique of the meaningless deaths that the war entailed. The anti-war message is also reinforced by the gritty comic-book-style graphics of the game. While it might at first evoke immaturity, it does not shy from depicting horrors and the bloody nature of the war, much more so than the photorealistic but sanitized versions of war typical for war-themed videogames (Pötzsch 2017). The depiction of the suffering on both sides testifies to the Europeanization through shared experiences that occurred during the First World War. Valiant Hearts is noticeably uniform in its intent to communicate an anti-war narrative on all levels of game design, not just its narrative, from its rhythm, sounds and the already mentioned visuals and mechanics constructing procedural rhetoric (Bogost 2007), which also plays a role in the shaping of the reception of the game discussed further.

Valiant Hearts’ theme of a war-torn Franco-German family can be understood as a symbolic and personified representation of Europe’s nations divided by war. Previously living together as a family, Emile and Karl end up fighting on opposing sides. Valiant Hearts constructs similarities between soldiers on both sides of the war and points this way towards a shared Europeanness. Karl also plays a key role in humanizing of the Germans and in building empathy for their suffering. While they are depicted consuming beer and sausages, their depiction does not imply greater brutality associated with the ‘Hun’ and other stereotypes (Musolff 2018). At the bittersweet end of the game, Karl is reunited with his family, but Emile does not survive, as will be discussed further. In the game, Emile also works with an anonymous German soldier to escape from a caved-in tunnel. The theme of a Franco-German family is also present in Merry Christmas as the character of the German officer has a French wife – explaining his command of the French language. The credits scene of Valiant Hearts shows the partially reunited family of Karl and Marie above Emile’s grave with countless other graves in the background. The narrator intercedes, mentioning the duty to remember the sacrifice of those fallen during the First World War. In this context, all the fallen of the First World War are included regardless of nationality. Throughout the game, common German soldiers (in contrast with the main antagonist – Baron von Dorf) are not represented as villains, just another side. This is in line with the current trends of transnational commemorations at the official level. A striking example can be the already mentioned Ring of Memory, where the 580 000 dead – French/German or other – are listed alphabetically in a posthumous brotherhood.

Besides the French and German viewpoints, the player in Valiant Hearts controls characters across other nationalities – an African-American Freddie, a volunteer in the French Foreign Legion and Anna, a Belgian veterinarian student turned battlefield nurse. The main characters are also accompanied by Walt, originally a German medical dog, which the player controls indirectly. Walt’s presence and his ability to seemingly traverse the front serve to highlight the paradox and irrationality of nation-based hatred and war. Walt is treated friendly by both sides, while the human characters face possible death from those wearing different uniforms. The character of the cat called Felix/Nestor has been used as a similar plot device by Merry Christmas. Another way how Valiant Hearts surpasses national perspectives is with the use of gibberish voices and comic bubbles for dialogues. Instead of everyone speaking, for example exclusively English or French, each character mumbles in their respective language with the content of their speech shown with symbols in bubbles above them. This way, the story of the game tries to be more universal and understandable across language divides. Similarly, the film Merry Christmas uses code-switching and multiple languages as a key part of its anti-war narrative and the theme of cooperation and understanding (Smith 2010; Junkerjürgen 2019).

Towards the end of Valiant Hearts, Emile strikes his commanding officer for driving his fellow soldiers to slaughter. Following the hit by a shovel, the officer dies, and Emile is sentenced to be executed for mutiny. Emile ends up walking up to be executed by his own side while denouncing the madness of war in a letter addressed to his daughter Marie. The French character of the officer represents the only enemy the player (as Emile) kills and later is punished for this by ‘their side’, which further disturbs a possible simplistic division of ‘us’ as French/Entente and the enemy ‘other’ as the German side. The focus on war throughout the game as an almost personified entity and insane endeavor that drives people mad is a good example of how the cooperation with Mission Centenaire and existing historiography consulted by Valiant Hearts’s creators has influenced the resulting the First World War framing (Kempshall 2020). Merry Christmas also depicts a clear conflict of the truce and fraternization as a grassroots effort of soldiers in contrast with the military and religious elites suppressing these to continue the war. Towards the end of Merry Christmas, the French officer shouts at his father, a general, expressing greater empathy for Germans than French people pushing for war.

Je vous dis, je me sentais plus proche des Allemands que de ceux qui crient mort aux Boches, bien au chaud devant leur dinde aux marrons.

(I tell you, I felt closer to the Germans than to those who cry death to Boches (Germans pejoratively), warm at home in front of their turkey on chestnuts.)

Reception analysis through Let’s Plays

For an interactive medium like videogames, the framing and highlighting of shared suffering during the First World War and the Europeanizing anti-war narrative in Valiant Hearts remain only in the realm of affordances that have to be activated by players who negotiate them and may respond to them in different manners. Let’s Plays (a popular genre of paratextual user-generated videos where people record themselves while playing videogames on platforms like YouTube and Twitch) are a useful source for reception analysis of videogames (Mukherjee 2015). As performed acts, Let’s Plays do not show completely authentic reactions (Nguyen 2016), still, when examined critically offer valuable recorded instances of play. Let’s Plays also serve as an amplifying vector of further remediation of videogames. With some Let’s Plays of Valiant Hearts counting millions of views, it can be even argued that the game is consumed equally significantly through people watching these videos as by those directly playing it.

The following analysis will involve a two-level close reading of Let’s Plays on Valiant Hearts and comments under these videos. The focus will be mainly on the French and German Let’s Plays, representing the core of European integration that can, thanks to the advances of the post-Second World War reconciliation, be considered the most susceptible to the anti-war Europeanizing narratives and the Franco-German reconciliation narrative. These will be complemented with examples from Czech and Polish Let’s Players representing newer Member States from Central-Eastern Europe with a radically different post-Second World War history. The Czech Republic has a relatively strong Eurosceptic tradition, and it also has a much more positive historical narrative surrounding the First World War. The war’s end is linked with the creation of the First Czechoslovak Republic, which holds a key place in the Czech national mythology as a successful project and as a golden age in history (Orzoff 2009). This means that the anti-war framing of the First World War as a wasteful or even meaningless endeavor with mass killing might not resonate as well in the Czech context because it has to compete with the narrative of the war being necessary for national independence. Similarly, in the case of Poland, the First World War led to national independence, continued and overlapped with the Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Bolshevik wars, which produced their own distinct casualties and memories (Szymański 2019). Both countries were part of the Eastern Block, making their post-Second World War experience quite different from the Franco-German one.

The following section is part of a larger research project that uses web scraping and distant reading to analyze a large corpus of YouTube comments on Let’s Plays (tens of thousands of comments) with the VADER sentiment analysis software (Hutto and Gilbert 2014), whose complete and adequate discussion is beyond the scope of this paper. The selected evocative examples are based on the project’s preliminary results and promising directions and have been chosen because they correspond to the parts of the game identified as those that incite strong emotional responses. The chosen parts of the game for closer analysis in chronological order of Valiant Heart’s story are as follows: the start of the game where Karl is deported, the first encounter with the dog Walt as a neutral character that disturbs the nationalizing logic, the mutiny in which Emile kills his commanding officer and Emile’s execution at the end of the game.

Tearing apart of the Franco-German family

The Let’s Players do not (at all) comment on the separation of the Franco-German family at the start of the game. Either they are completely silent or appear to be overwhelmed by other aspects of the game, like impressive animation or emotional music. The comment section of Let’s Plays is also a place where one can study the reception and perspectives of other people besides the specific Let’s Player who created the video. Many commenters discuss only the quality of the game or the entertaining nature of the Let’s Play, however some also deal with historical events Valiant Hearts is depicting. While the game is generally evaluated by the commenters rather positively as a potentially great educational tool and source of historical information, there are those who view it negatively and present their own alternative framing of the First World War. Two commenters on the first video in the series of a German Let’s Player Gronkh from the start of Valiant Hearts illustrate this phenomenon quite well. The first one calls out the interpretations of the First World War in Valiant Hearts as ‘false’ and ‘propaganda’, pointing to what he perceives as an unjust attribution of responsibility for the war’s outbreak to Germany.

Rene Nerozar: … nur kann ich diese Geschichts Fälschung und Propaganda nicht antun. Deutschland trägt nicht die Schuld am ersten Weltkrieg …

(I cannot stand this falsification of history and propaganda. Germany is not to blame for the First World War)

Another commenter expresses dissatisfaction with the depiction of Germans as the antagonist, the lack of ability to play as the German side in historical videogames — while explaining he is not a Nazi, as he imagines some might imply this from his statement.

AnnoyingBoi: Mal ganz ehrlich, ich finde es extrem ‘scheiße’, dass man … immer gegen Deutschland spielt … Und nein, ich bin kein Nationalsozialist aka Nazi.

(To be honest, I think it’s extremely ‘shitty’ that you always play against Germany … And no, I’m not a National Socialist aka Nazi).

This kind of critical attitude is virtually non-existent in the comment section for the final video in Gronkh’s Let’s Play series, suggesting that the framing of Valiant Hearts is successful in convincing people. Alternatively, this could also be explained by those people having problems with Valiant Hearts’ framing of the First World War leaving the Let’s Play series, which could have created a further biased audience sample.

Encountering the dog Walt

Both the Polish and the Czech Let’s Players are happy after finding out Walt saved them/Emile after being trapped by debris from an artillery bombardment.

Admiros: Pies nam pomógł. Piękne.

(The dog helped us. Nice.)

Fimlar: Jéé, pejsek mě vyhrabal. Ahoj, pejsku!

(Ohh, the doggie dug me out. Hi, doggie!)

Similar warm attitudes can be heard by the French Let’s Player as well.

Funeral Play: … Et maintenant ça va devenir mon toutou. Mon toutou à moi. Allez mon toutou.

(And now it’s going to be my doggie. Just mine doggie. Come my doggie.)

The German Let’s Player also shows positive emotions towards Walt in this situation.

Gronkh: Ein liebes Hundy. Ja, du bist ein liebes Hundy … Ich glaube, das Hund hat uns gerettet. … So ein süßer Hund.

(A lovely doggy. Yes, you are a lovely doggy … I think the dog saved us. … Such a sweet dog.)

The examples show omnipresent empathy with the dog character of Walt, who starts as a member of the opposing German army. The strength of the connection and emotions Walt provokes can be seen in the use of various diminutive expressions in respective languages.

The mutiny and Emile’s killing of his officer

Before hitting the commanding officer, the German Let’s Player justifies this act by pointing out the craziness of his orders and the certain death they would mean for Emile’s character and his fellow soldiers.

Gronkh: Der verrückte General … das ist Selbstmord.

(The crazy general … This is suicide)

The French Let’s Player expresses a mitigated willingness to pursue the doomed attack.

Funeral Play: Bon. Ecoutez … Il faut qu’on y aller.

(Well, look … we have to go/push)

When the moment comes to strike the officer, he remains silent, which may indicate the ambivalent feelings about stopping a doomed offensive through disobeying one’s orders. The Polish Let’s player expresses only satisfaction with hitting the officer.

Admiros: TAK! (YES!).

The Czech Let’s Player is much more talkative and expresses frustration with the inability to hurt the officer before the scripted moment in the game.

Fimlar: Já jsme ho chtěl ťafnout po hlavě a NIC. … Oni se bojej ty lidi. On to prostě nechápe. On je debil. … Zaprvý, ty lidi se bojej. Zadruhý, on je posílá na smrt. … BLBOUNE!

(I wanted to bonk his head and NOTHING. … The people are scared. He just doesn’t get it. He’s an idiot. … Firstly, the people are scared. Secondly, he’s sending them to their deaths. … YOU DUMMY!)

Most examples seem to indicate some level of agreement with the hitting of the officer as a revolt against the meaningless killing.

Emile’s execution

Reacting to Emile’s execution, the French Let’s Player stresses the fact he/Emile is being killed by his own country for refusing to follow a stupid strategy and later also shows empathy for the German side – in line with the narrative of Franco-German reconciliation (note the use of first-person):

Funeral Play: Ahh … je suis encore prisonnier. ouais … allez ah, oh làlà … Après toutes ces années de service. Tout ça parce que je n’avais pas envie de mourir… Je me suis rebellé contre une stratégie STUPIDE. Je me fais emprisonné par mes-mon PROPRE pays, ça va être ATROCE.

(Ahh … I’m still a prisoner. yeah … come on ah, oh-là-là … after all these years of service. All because I didn’t want to die … I rebelled against a STUPID strategy. I’m getting jailed by my – my OWN country, it’s gonna be ATROCIOS.)

…

Je pense que de ce même du côté des Allemands il y doit avoir des trucs comme ça. Même si … voilà ils sont considérés comme les méchants, parce que comme on dit c’est des vainqueurs qui écrivent l’histoire. Ahhh, mais … bon mais c’est eux qui ont attaqué … Apparemment … blablabla, on s’en fout.

(I think that even on the side of the Germans there must be things like that. Even if they are considered as the bad guys, because, as the saying goes, it’s the winners who write history. Ahhh, but … well … but it is they who attacked … Apparently blah blah blah, who cares.)

The German Let’s Player Gronkh does not refer to the French side of the war and does not really discuss the First World War. Instead, he denounces the concept of war in general, which may suggest the game’s narrative, while focused in a way on the French First World War experience, delivers a more transnationally understandable meaning and anti-war message.

Gronkh: Sondern vor allen Dingen was zu mir persönlich ich weiß nicht was-was jetzt dir am meistens aufgefallen ist oder meisten was ich am meistens beeinflusst, hat bei mir ist einfach … Mir persönlich wird hier diese Sinnlosigkeit des Krieges einfach aufgezeigt.

(But above all, what to me personally, I don’t know what, what you noticed most. What impacted me the most is simply… For me personally is how it pointed out this senselessness of war)

…

Diese vollkommen die Idiotie irgendwann die ja nicht mal Verzweiflung ist sondern einfach nur Dummheit. Ich verstehe es einfach nicht.

(This complete idiocy at some point, which isn’t even desperation but just stupidity. I just don’t understand it.)

Fimlar, the Czech Let’s Player we discussed in previous examples, only mentions he liked the game and how the stories came together at the end. This may or may not be due to the potentially more problematic relation a Czech person might have to the anti-war narrative denouncing the meaninglessness of the First World War. However, another Czech Let’s Player Mini Piez expresses the game resonated with him and he mentions the game’s narrative holds a universal and current meaning.

Mini Piez: To, co vypráví tahle hra, to je reality. Všechno, co se v ní stalo, to se stalo i v pravý válce. Oběti byly a takovýdle smutný příběhy byly úplně všude a doteď jsou. Takže pokud Vás můžu o něco poprosit, tak si pamatujte … Emila a zbytek týhle bandy. Padl za nás a já si toho cením.

(What this game tells, it is reality. Everything that happened in it also happened in the real war. There were victims and there were such sad stories absolutely everywhere and they remain until today. So, if I can ask you something, remember … Emile and the rest of this gang. He fell for us and I appreciate it.)

It is not clear from his words if the ‘us’ refers to Europeans or humanity as a whole or today’s generations for example. Still, the category seems indisputably larger than only Czechs. Similarly, the Polish Let’s Player Admiros, while not explicitly mentioning a shared identity, is unmistakably moved by the game’s narrative and accepts the main anti-war message when he at the end explains he believes the game tries to explain to the people living today how terrible the war was. Even though he does not mention Europe or the European Union, he talks about the difficulty of imagining war breaking out now and surviving what people in the First World War survived.

Some French commentators highlight the fact that France is not shown in the best of lights and agree with this judgment, which indicates a resonance with the anti-war message and the problematization of nationalization perspective through the de-nationalizing logic.

timothe corvasier: … l’Allemagne qui a fais des choses horrible … mais que la France elle aussi afais des chose horrible…

(Germany, which did horrible things … but that France also did horrible things).

Alexis Rodriguez: … ont se rend conte que la France était aussi une belle merde pandant la guerre:’(

(we realize that France was quite shitty during the war as well).

German comments on the ending of Valiant Hearts follow a similar line. They however do not mention Germany’s role in the First World War and argue instead that war is never justified.

vanderzarth: Auch wenn Kriege heute anders ablaufen als damals: Jeder Tote ist einer zu viel und aus Krieg entwächst nur Leid und Tod.

(Even if wars are different today than they were back then: every death is one too many and only suffering and death grow out of the war.)

One comment under a Polish Let’s Play shows an example of how the game’s narrative can be accepted without the player or viewer accepting a Europeanizing narrative.

Pan Publiczny: ah te jebane francuziki wysyłają swoich na rzeź a potem za zabicie swojego oficera za wysyłanie na rzeź zabijają

(ah these fucking French send their people to slaughter and then kill (Emile) for killing the officer that was sending them to slaughter)

Here Emile’s tragic death is interpreted as being a French incident, external, not relatable to the commenter, not relevant to his Polish context. Overall, there are noticeable differences in the reactions of Let’s Players and their audiences from the different contexts, but all of them to a certain extent show resonance with the Europeanizing elements of the anti-war narrative and that of the de-nationalizing logic. The Franco-German reconciliation narrative has been referenced exclusively by the French Let’s Player and his viewers. From the analyzed illustrative sample, it cannot be ascertained whether the differences among the analyzed reception contexts are given by the individual personality of Let’s Players or by their national and cultural background. Similarly, while Valiant Hearts as an informal institution through its framing and cultural impact structures and encourages some types of narratives around the First World War, it does not completely suppress others, like a nationalistic celebration that can be seen in the comment under the French Let’s Play where the ‘us’ community is understood along purely nationalistic lines.

ToucherRektAll: Juste magnifique. Un rappel à la mémoire nécessaire mais si difficile merci à ces soldats qui ce sont sacrifies pour nous pour notre confort. je ne dirais qu’une chose VIVE LA FRANCE !

(Just beautiful. A necessary reminder but so difficult thank you to these soldiers who sacrificed themselves for us for our comfort I would say only one thing LONG LIVE FRANCE)

Conclusion

This paper explored how the videogame Valiant Hearts set in the First World War in comparison with the film Merry Christmas constructs a specific framing of this conflict through Europeanizing elements of anti-war narrative, the Franco-German reconciliation narrative and the de-nationalizing logic. Operating as a kind of informal institution affecting historical remembrance, Valiant Hearts, along with other pop culture media like Merry Christmas, present the First World War as a European conflict, indirectly reinforce the positive value of peaceful coexistence in Europe, which is today directly linked to the existence of the EU with the Nobel Peace Prize award. The reception analysis showed that Europeans from French, German, as well as Czech and Polish contexts find some positive resonance with this offer of meaning-making potential. Among the three elements, the Franco-German reconciliation was the least represented in the reactions of Let’s Players and their audiences, visible only in the French case. The anti-war narrative, as well as the de-nationalizing logic, seem to have however been broadly accepted in all contexts. Players and audiences from newer Member States seem also receptive to the Europeanizing elements, the Czech Let’s Player showing appreciation for the sacrifice of a French soldier Emile for a community he describes as ‘us’.

Valiant Hearts seems successful in handling the problematic and complicated the First World War memory, that prevented previous videogames from tackling this serious topic. Furthermore, the case shows videogames may, as a complex rhetorical cultural artifact, also in turn indirectly help the legitimization of a complex political project like the European Union. Valiant Hearts and the culture around playing videogames in general, serve as an example of a seemingly apolitical everyday free-time activity that however provides affordances for shared experiences and interactions that may provide occasions for informal Europeanization. The very fact that people across Europe have been in significant numbers playing the same game that deals with their shared history and pursued discussions online around Let’s Plays and other paratextual media, indicates acultural practice with possible Europeanizing effects. The phenomenon is further amplified by the fact that Valiant Hearts contains the aforementioned Europeanizing framing that indirectly legitimizes the EU.

Valiant Hearts is one of many commercially successful videogames that deal with European history and which may either present framings of cooperation or of hostility between Europeans and can influence attitudes towards European integration. The Assassin’s Creed series by Ubisoft, is one of the most successful videogame franchises that explores various periods of European history. Grand strategy conceptual historical simulations by the Swedish company Paradox Interactive offer a different kind of gameplay experience by simulating the historical process and providing models for contrafactual scenarios of European and world history. These all offer occasions for informal Europeanization through the playful free-time activity of playing videogames and through discussions in the gaming culture around them.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Angus Mol, Tomáš Weiss, Mitchel Young as well as the anonymous reviewers for their feedback, which improved this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of International Studies, Charles University, Czech Republic [Supported by IMS FSV UK, SVV project No. 260594].