A Game Like No Other...
Available for free on PS4, PS5, Epic Games, and STEAM, The Light in the Darkness is a dark and educational game developed by Luc Bernard. Bernard has a mission to remind people of the events of the Holocaust, so that the victims and history are not forgotten. Bernard's grandmother was actually a caretaker who looked after children who came off the Kindertransport in the UK.
The Kindertransport is German for "Children Transport". The UK took nearly 10,000 children, most who were Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzing. These children were taken from Nazi controlled territories during the 9 months before the start of WW2. Often times these children were the only survivors of their family following the Holocaust.
This being said, it's understandable that Bernard wants to educate people on this historical event that affected so many. It's horrible that there are people who claim that the Holocaust never happened and have chosen to forget those poor souls who were lost to the atrocities of Hitler's regime. That being said, this game contains trigger warnings of suicide, murder, hate speech, extremist ideologies, and real historical events that some may find disturbing.
In this game, you follow a Jewish family in Paris right before the Nazi occupation and play as several different characters. These characters are a young boy named Samuel, his mother Bluma, his father Moses, and their family friends Bernard and Marie. You play through their daily life, from living normally to fearing and fleeing due to the Nazi occupation. It's crazy to see how just words can affect people so deeply, but also to see how blindly people follow those in power. You see things like Samuel playing with his friends, but then they turn on him once Nazi propaganda made its way into the minds of those in the community. You witness Bluma and Moses lose their shop to a non-Jew after it being claimed Jews were unfit to run their own businesses. You see the doubt in Bernard as he says he has become a Christian and is no longer Jewish, but still is treated just like all the other Jews. You watch Marie, a non-Jew, as she stands by, unable to do much to help her Jewish friends.
I absolutely loved the experience of this game. I felt so connected to the characters and learned a lot of history that I hadn't known before in my studies of the Holocaust. Being one of the only games that handled these types of events from civilian perspective, I thought it was really well done and done tastefully. Most games that deal with historical events surrounding WW2 and the Holocaust put you in the shoes of someone in military standing, never civilian.
The gameplay lasts about an hour and a half, but it didn't feel that long. It was extremely immersive! However, just when I thought my heart couldn't break anymore for these characters, it did. Bernard was definitely able to tug at the heart strings and then hit you with the reminder that these events really happened. You can't change the outcome. People really lived like this. People really suffered through this. People really died because of this. Real photos of victims and events are spread throughout the game, but the ones that affected me the most were the ones at the very end. Seeing the faces children and families who had died at the hand of such evil absolutely broke my heart.
Bernard is currently working on building a virtual Holocaust Museum in the world-famous game, Fortnite. I personally am very excited to see what he makes of it and can't wait to see it fully completed. Overall, I highly suggest playing this educational game. For the price of free and the short play time of an hour and a half, you really can't beat it. I believe it is a game everyone should experience in their life. If you do decide to try this game, I'd love to know what you think of it. Kudos to Mr. Bernard for his hard work on this title and his goal to educate others.
For additional information about the Holocaust and the stories of those who survived, as well as more information on this game, check out these websites:
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