11-11: Memories Retold

Lore & Background

The game allows the player to play as two characters: Canadian photographer Harry Lambert (voiced by Elijah Wood) and German engineer Kurt Waldner (voiced by Sebastian Koch). Harry is attracted by glory and the desire to seduce his childhood friend, so he follows a major in search of a new war photographer. Kurt, working as an engineer, learns on the radio that his son's unit is missing and joins the German military to find him. Gameplay takes place from a third-person perspective, with the ability to choose between protagonists at the beginning of a chapter or freely during certain parts. Kurt can interact with electrical devices to solve puzzles, while Harry uses a camera to photograph points of interest. The player can also control a cat and a pigeon during certain sequences.

Reader's Guide

11-11: Memories Retold is significant as a narrative-driven World War I game that emphasizes humanity between opposing sides, developed through a collaboration between DigixArt and Aardman Animations. Its impressionist art style, inspired by J. M. W. Turner, Claude Monet, and Aleksandr Petrov, was adapted from Aardman's short film Flight of the Stories for the Imperial War Museum. The game received generally favourable reviews on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and mixed or average reviews on Windows according to Metacritic. OpenCritic reported that 58% of critics recommended the game. Critics praised the writing and voice acting. The game was released two days before the centennial of the armistice, and is linked to Valiant Hearts: The Great War, another game by the same director commemorating the centennial of the war's beginning.

Did You Know?

• The visual style was inspired by impressionist artists J. M. W. Turner, Claude Monet, and Aleksandr Petrov.
• The game was co-developed by DigixArt and Aardman Animations.

Visual Style & Artistic Vision

The game's most immediately striking feature is its painterly aesthetic, which draws directly from the tradition of impressionism. Aardman Animations, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit, brought this vision to life after experimenting with multiple artistic directions during development. They explored styles rooted in World War I-era movements like Futurism and Cubism, but ultimately rejected those approaches because they feared the result would read as a generic low-poly experience. Instead, they settled on an impressionist look that had already been prototyped in a short film Aardman produced for the Imperial War Museum titled Flight of the Stories, which paired 3D objects with a stylized painterly treatment. The studio specifically cited J. M. W. Turner, Claude Monet, and Aleksandr Petrov as artists whose work informed the final visual language. This choice gave the trenches and no-man's-land a soft, almost dreamlike quality that set the game apart from the photorealistic war titles that dominated the genre at the time.

Narrative & Characters

At its heart, the game tells two parallel stories of men drawn into the Great War for deeply personal reasons. Canadian photographer Harry Lambert, voiced by Elijah Wood, enlists not out of patriotism but out of a restless hunger for glory and a desire to impress his childhood friend. He follows a major into the field, hoping to capture images that will flatter his superiors and secure his own place. On the opposing side, German engineer Kurt Waldner, voiced by Sebastian Koch, is a man shattered by a radio broadcast informing him that his son's unit has gone missing. He abandons his civilian life to join the German military, driven solely by the desperate need to find his child. The developers at DigixArt have stated their goal was to surface moments of shared humanity across the enemy line, and the dual-protagonist structure serves that purpose by forcing the player to inhabit both perspectives. The writing and voice performances were singled out by critics as among the game's strongest elements.

Gameplay & Mechanics

The game unfolds from a third-person perspective and gives the player the freedom to switch between Harry and Kurt either at chapter openings or during specific mid-sequence moments. Each character carries a distinct toolkit that shapes how puzzles and set pieces are approached. Kurt's engineering background translates into the ability to interact with electrical devices, forming the backbone of many of the game's puzzle sequences. Harry, by contrast, wields a camera that he can aim at points of interest throughout the battlefield; the player chooses whether to frame the scene in a way that glorifies the war for his commanding officers or captures something more personal and honest. In a charming departure from the grim subject matter, certain sequences allow the player to directly control a cat and a pigeon, adding a lighter, almost whimsical counterpoint to the otherwise heavy narrative. The structure encourages the player to see the same conflict through two very different lenses.

Development & Reception

The project came together through a chance meeting at the Games for Change Europe 2016 event, where DigixArt crossed paths with members of Aardman Animations. From that initial conversation, a collaboration took shape that would eventually be published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The team released the finished product on 9 November 2018, a deliberately symbolic date falling just two days before the centennial anniversary of the armistice that ended the war. On the critical front, the game earned generally favourable reviews on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, while its Windows version received mixed or average scores on Metacritic. OpenCritic's aggregate data showed 58 percent of critics recommending the title, a figure the development team likely viewed as a strong endorsement. The game also sits in a broader lineage of commemorative war titles, sharing its director with Valiant Hearts: The Great War, which marked the centennial of the war's beginning.