Demo leads the way to The Caribou Trail 

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

WWI-based adventure from the creators of Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina) coming May 14th

With their debut title, indie developer Unreliable Narrators offered players a rarely explored slice of Canadiana in the seventeenth-century settler adventure Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina). The studio's next game will feature another glimpse into little-known Canadian history, though The Caribou Trail will take place far from home in a much different setting when it arrives next month. 

The game is set during the failed Gallipoli campaign of World War I, in which the Allies attempted to "secure a vital sea route into Russia" against the Ottomans on the shores of Turkey. The only North Americans among the Allied forces stationed there were the Newfoundland Regiment from Canada. This story – a fictional account but "inspired by real testimonies" – follows Fisher Harding and his good friends Gordon O'Leary and Lonnie McGrath, who enlisted for the war expecting a "short-lived adventure full of tales to bring back home," but instead found "not glory, but mud, fear, loss and fleeting moments of humanity that keep them going." Together they will perform daring missions, whether to "cut through barbed wire in no man’s land on a desperate reconnaissance mission, silence a sniper holding the line, [or] make noise during a chaotic evacuation." But this is not a game about "winning the war, it’s about enduring it," focusing less on battle and more on the "quiet gestures that hold a regiment together, the impossible choices, the weight of survival and dubious stews no one back home would dare to call edible."

As with Two Falls, The Caribou Trail is a free-roaming 3D adventure that aims to make players feel like they're really there, experiencing all the highs, lows, terror and elation and witnessing events "through your own eyes." You will carry a rifle among your binoculars and other gear, and may even be called upon to use it at times, but Call of Duty this is not. The emphasis here is on narrative-driven character drama as you "explore the back lines, feel the weight of anticipation, stumble through the trenches, reclaim the dog tags of fallen comrades, and share stories with those who still have the strength to speak." After all, these are "not hardened soldiers, but ordinary men" who distract themselves from the spectre of battle by telling ghost stories around the fire, "cooking fish’n’brews in battered pots, laughing at bad jokes, and clinging to one another when silence grows too heavy." 

The "visceral" gameplay is largely quest-based, equipping you with a map, a compass, and other tools needed to survive. Controlled either by keyboard/mouse or gamepad, the game endows you with no special powers – not even the ability to jump, only to sneak and "hurry" when all hell starts breaking loose (and it will). In between first-hand experience of the many horrors of war, from corpse-strewn battlefields to shellshock to personal injury under fire, the tale of Fisher and his mates becomes a deeply emotional one focused on "the waiting ... and the quiet moments that speak louder than combat." But beware the strain on your psyche when the line between reality and myth begins to blur as "campfire tales echo into the darkness." You'll need to be thinking clearly for the terrible choices you're forced to make – choices "rooted in humanity, not heroism." 

The full version of The Caribou Trail is due to launch on Steam and Epic for Windows PC on May 14th, along with a console version for PlayStation 5. If you'd like to do an advanced scouting mission, a downloadable demo is already available on Steam.

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