Torn Away being pieced together for early 2022 release
The Diary of a Young Girl may be the most famous chronicle of war from a child's perspective, but Anne Frank wasn't the only youth who recorded her traumatic experiences on paper. Inspired by the journals of other such children, indie Russian developer Perelesoq's upcoming Torn Away will seek to convey the horrors of World War II from a very unique, particularly vulnerable perspective.
With the war raging across Europe, the life of an ordinary ten-year-old orphan girl named Asya is shattered when she's taken from her home and forced to become an "Ostarbeiter, a common worker in a forced labour camp." Under these desperate conditions, Asya struggles to cling to any sliver of hope that she will one day be free again. Then one day her chance arrives and she's able to escape, fleeing across the "wintry wilderness of Germany and Poland." The path is rife with further hardship, however, and Asya will need to "persevere through the harsh elements of nature, solving puzzles and engaging in a variety of different types of gameplay to hide from soldiers, look for shelter and food and survive to see [her] home once again."
Beautifully presented in an art style "inspired by social realists and French animation," Torn Away promises a blend of different gameplay elements, including "adventure games, stealth side-scrollers, and cinematic first-person sequences." With no way to fight or defend herself, Asya will need to use cunning and quiet to evade the many dangers along the way. Just as important in this "war-torn world where violence and terror reign," Asya must find a way to "stay true to herself" and "survive without losing that which makes us human." By exploring the "consequences of war and the effect these tragedies can have on children and other non-combatants," the developers hope to not merely entertain but to "change the dialogue about war and nationalised violence."
There is no firm release date just yet, but Torn Away is on course to be launched on Steam for Windows PC sometime early next year.
Game information
You might also want to know about
