The Caribou Trail
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for The Caribou Trail
It is not the first time that the First World War has been represented in a video game in a more intimate format (there we have Valiant Hearts ), but The Caribou Trail manages to stand out by stylistically recalling games such as the magnificent What Remains of Edith Finch or the superb Firewatch (and the graphic style of Campo Santo in the style of Sea of Thieves floods the entire visual aspect of the game in question).
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Caribou Trail from developers Unreliable Narrators and ManaVoid is an emotional and revealing experience about the horrors of World War I and what soldiers went through. It’s not for the weak of heart, nor is it for those looking for their next first-person shooter fix.
The Caribou Trail presents a strong, albeit short, story worth experiencing alongside some boring, tedious, and downright pointless mechanics. While I recommend it for the story, it is one of those games that leave me wishing it were just a movie or an interactive visual novel, rather than what can only be described as a walking simulator.
The Caribou Trail left me caring for an unknown war story. Fisher, Gordon and Lonnie’s human tale of small island men being cast into a global conflict is equal parts sombre and heartwarming. The title’s great voice acting and audio design immersed me into this short story deeply.
The Caribou Trail is one of the more emotionally grounded WW1 games I’ve played in a while. Its biggest strengths are easily the story, characters, and atmosphere. The game does a great job making the player care about the people at the center of its story while also capturing the emotional weight of the historical events that inspired it. It does have some performance issues, and the slower pacing definitely won’t be for everyone, but the overall experience left a strong impression on me. This is the kind of game that stays with you because of its mood and emotional moments rather than action or spectacle. If you enjoy story-driven games with strong atmosphere and character writing, The Caribou Trail is absolutely worth experiencing.
Ultimately, my time with The Caribou Trail was refreshing. It provided me with a very important, albeit overlooked, perspective on a soldier’s life that deftly captured the doldrums that Orwell enumerated during his time in the trenches. The game honored a real World War 1 regiment that not many people know about, using a touching story about the bonds formed among countrymen. While the psychological horrors and exaggerated heroics didn’t really work for me, this game had a bleeding heart that will stick with me whenever I think back on this great world war. “We didn’t do nothing here,” one soldier said as they evacuated Gallipoli. “Getting out alive is not nothing,” the other responded. Perhaps, like that first soldier, I need to recalibrate my definition of a war hero.
The Caribou Trail will not work for anyone expecting Battlefield, Call of Duty, or even a mechanically rich adventure game. Its interactions are basic, its path is linear, and some repetitive prompts last too long. But if you enjoy focused narrative games, it tells a powerful story about friendship, pain, and the small pieces of humanity people cling to when the world has gone mad. I enjoyed my time with it, and its final moments stayed with me long after the credits rolled.
