This War of Mine: Forget Celebrations Charity DLC Review

This War of Mine: Forget Celebrations Charity DLC is a new DLC for This War of Mine released on the 11th of December to commemorate Amnesty International awarding a Special Recognition Award to the title. Instead of being a celebratory update, though, this new DLC is completely for charity — 100% of proceeds go to these four organisations: Liberty Ukraine, Amnesty International, Indie Games Poland Foundation, and War Child.

The DLC has its own unique story, centring around one of the citizens from the main game, Katia. Taking place in the besieged city of Pogoren, which is the same place the non-DLC game takes place in, this time our goal isn’t just to survive the war, but to help Katia, who is a seasoned war correspondent, finish writing her book before the rescue party sent by her publisher arrives. It’s very interesting and includes some neat dialogue and a great ending, which I will not spoil. The starting crew and shelter are actually really good, which isn’t that common in the base game: we’ve got Katia, obviously, Pavle, who’s a fast runner and is very useful for scavenging, and Marin, who’s a handyman and can build things for a smaller material cost. 

To help Katia write her book, there’s an added gameplay mechanic you have to play with. Other than the basic requirements to survive: heat, food, and sleep, you have to gather Katia’s Book Materials from all over the city during scavenges, in order to help her figure out what she wants to write about. Each one of those takes exactly one inventory space, meaning you’re going to have to give up on some materials in order to progress the story. It’s not a really big difference and doesn’t add too much to how the game plays, but reading the notes on each item is pretty interesting.

There are no graphics changes in the DLC, it uses the exact same models the base game uses, which all look great and completely on point with the message This War of Mine is trying to convey — war is nothing but sadness and regret. Other aspects of the game’s art have also not changed at all, so there’s nothing to talk about in this regard, really. The music and sound design are both unchanged from the base version of This War of Mine have also been left unchanged, so there’s nothing really interesting to note — similarly to the graphics, both are great and fit the tone and messaging of the title.

Overall, This War of Mine: Forget Celebrations Charity DLC is a pretty good DLC, especially considering its low price of £2.49. Even if not for the content it adds to the game, I’d say it’s worth buying this just to support the different charities, and of course, if you want to support them even further, each one of them has a site you can (and are encouraged to, by me, right now) donate however much you want on: Liberty Ukraine, Amnesty International, Indie Games Poland Foundation, and finally, War Child.