The Caribou Trail

It's great when games have something to say, especially when they might even be trying to teach us something at the same time. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I'm interested. The Caribou Trail is one such game, and following its release on PC back in mid-May, it has now also arrived on PlayStation 5.

The Caribou Trail tells the story of the Battle of Gallipoli, which took place on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey in 1915 during the First World War. It was a major Allied military offensive against the Ottoman Empire, and the battle later became notorious for its heavy casualties, with estimates suggesting that more than 130,000 soldiers died and more than a quarter of a million were wounded. The battle was also noted for the often protracted and gruelling stalemate in the fighting, with troops facing each other across the trenches, with no prospect of the conflict being resolved.

Another distinctive feature of the Battle of Gallipoli was the participation of more than 12,000 Canadian volunteers from Newfoundland. They did so because, at that time, Newfoundland was a self-governing colony within the British Empire, and the troops from there consisted mainly of young fishermen and lumberjacks who were sent to war with little training.

In The Caribou Trail, you play as the young soldier, Fisher, who, together with his two friends, enlists in the British Army and ends up being sent to the front in Europe. The story does not focus on the battles themselves, but rather on the soldiers' daily lives in the trenches, their longing for Canada, and the camaraderie in the bleak and cold trenches.

The game comes from Canadian studio Unreliable Narrators, based in Montreal, where CEO Christopher Chancey is a descendant of Newfoundlanders - and whose own ancestor fell during the First World War - making it a rather personal story for the development team.

The Caribou Trail is a simple narrative adventure game, almost a "walking simulator", and can be completed in around 3-5 hours. The narrative is clearly the most central aspect of the game, and you shouldn't expect much in the way of gameplay here. Most of the time is spent in the trenches, where you must carry out simple tasks, such as delivering post, maintaining the trenches, speaking to the commander-in-chief, and cooking in a (presumably deliberately) monotonous mini-game, which gives you time to listen to the soldiers' stories from home, or to hear the thoughts and fears they harbour in the trenches.

However, there are also small missions where, for example, during a brief ceasefire with the Turks, you must venture out onto the open battlefield to find your fallen comrades and retrieve their dog tags, so that their families back home can be certain of what has happened to their loved ones. It's heart-wrenching to read the final thoughts of these dead soldiers, which they managed to write down before succumbing to their injuries.

The gameplay mechanics are simple and are there solely to support the story, rather than to create engaging and captivating gameplay. Apart from the truly well-executed ending, most of the game is relatively dull, and this is likely a deliberate choice by the developers to make the player feel the monotony of life in the trenches. Does the game work well as a game? No. Does it work well as a story? Yes, it does. It's more of a simple interactive narrative than it is a game, and if you can immerse yourself in it and in the characters, then the game has succeeded.

The Caribou Trail is, therefore, a simple game with a strong narrative at its very heart. I suspect the developers have tried to convey the banality the soldiers experienced in the trenches, and one might ask whether it's a good idea to try to convey banality through a game? I'm a bit unsure about that, and it was a bit of a slog to get through, despite the fact that it only lasts 3-5 hours.

If you're interested in history, The Caribou Trail is a fine experience, but if you're looking for a war game, you've come to the wrong place. This is an interactive narrative, though one so simple that the gameplay almost drags the rest of the game down with it. I accept that the narrative is the main focus, but as this is a game we're dealing with, the player needs to be engaged from time-to-time. That said, the game tells a gripping story that's certainly worth telling.