"Valiant Hearts" (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) Quiz

Answer: Karl

Emile's daughter had just given birth to his grandson, and now her German husband, Karl, has been deported from France and drafted into the German army. During the course of the game, Emile will brave virtually every major battle on the western front.

Answer: American

"Lucky" Freddie is a Louisiana Creole who enlisted in the French military (specifically, the Foreign Legion) after the war started. He is large and strong, and is handy with explosives, wire cutters, and his fists. Freddie is first seen fending off several French soldiers who are pushing him around.

While they cannot do any harm to Freddie (no one can!), he still needs Emile's help to shoo them off. This is the start of a wonderful and tragic friendship.

Answer: Flag-bearer

Emile charges along with the rest of his platoon, but they slowly get whittled down by enemy fire, until Emile is the only one left. He keeps charging, but is eventually struck by an artillery shell, wounded, and captured by the enemy. His stint as a flag-bearer is over barely a few minutes after it began. Millions of soldiers did not last long in this bloody war.

Answer: Emile

Emile meets Walt while working as a cook at the German camp where he was imprisoned. Walt is a medic's dog, and is extremely intelligent, friendly and loyal. He first hooks up with Emile when a bomb hits the kitchen and buries Emile under a pile of rubble. Walt pulls him out, and the two become good friends. Emile and Walt appear in the main menu, and feature prominently in the game's trailers and advertisement artwork.

Answer: Emile's daughter Marie is on the zeppelin.

The zeppelin belongs to Baron Von Dorf, an evil German officer hoping to utilize brutal tactics and technology in the war. He's the one who kidnapped Anna's father and forced him to invent horrible weapons, such as chlorine gas machines. He also bombed Paris at the start of the war and killed Freddie's wife, becoming his nemesis. Finally, Karl is serving on the Baron's zeppelin, which is why Emile is chasing it. Though Von Dorf is a fictional character, and specifically a German one, he is meant to embody the concept of people on all sides of the conflict pushing the brutality of the war even beyond its already horrific boundaries, for the sole purpose of winning it.

Answer: Ypres

The game follows the course of the war from 1914 to 1917, and puts our characters in many of the most important battles and events, including the first gas attack on Ypres. The game also provides a great deal of historical information about each location, about items and technology used in the field, and about the psychological condition of the people who fought there.

It also does not try to "pretty things up", so expect the chlorine gas attack to be quite gruesome - and it only gets worse from there.

Answer: No one

The game is a commemoration of the Great War, and is committed to an anti-war message, which means that it does not glorify the war in any way. Following this guideline, it's not surprising that no one actually kills the "Big Bad" of the game at all. Even Freddie, who wants to avenge his wife's death and is the one who catches up to Von Dorf and beats him up badly, can't bring himself to kill the Baron - saying that it would make him no better a man. Von Dorf is, however, relieved from duty by the Germans, which the game calls "a fate worse than death for him".

Answer: Beethoven's 9th symphony, 4th movement

Each driving sequence is an arcade-style mini-game that you have to go through once in a while, but it is quite short and fun even for those without twitch skills. It consists primarily of having to maneuver around obstacles, whose appearance is perfectly timed with a piece of classical music.

It might be a little too ironic to include the 9th Symphony, which is the anthem of the European Union, in a game dealing with an insanely-deadly war between European countries.

Answer: Execution

In what may be one of the most heart-breaking moments in video-game history, Emile is executed at the end of the game for killing a superior officer. He was only doing it because said officer had gone raving mad and was sending soldiers to their deaths, but the army doesn't care.

What makes this scene even more heart-rending is the fact that we, the players, must walk Emile to the post where he will be shot. Excuse me, I think I'm going to go and cry somewhere for a little while.

Answer: The arrival of American troops in Europe.

This short scene appears halfway through the credits. It shows Freddie on the docks in France, waving his hat towards the naval convoy bringing in the American army to enter the war.

Despite this "optimistic note", the narration gives a completely different tone: "Hungry for more, the war was not over yet. Its appetite was infinite."