"We wanted to do a game about the war but not a war game, so that's why you don't kill people. The war kills them, but you don't kill them." That's what lead designer Julian Chevalier said when I asked him about the concept behind Valiant Hearts: The Great War, Ubisoft's upcoming game about World War I.

When I played Valiant Hearts recently at a preview event, I saw that the game wastes no time in putting a human face on war, focusing not on military strategy and the motivations of huge political powers but on how the machinations of those powers impacted the lives of ordinary people. The game starts as Karl, a German who has been living in France with his wife and newborn child, is forcibly separated from his family when the war breaks out. Back in Germany, Karl is conscripted into the German army, while his wife's father, Emile, is forced to enlist on the French side; Valiant Hearts isn't a story of good versus evil, but of regular people swept up in a conflict that is beyond their control.