This is admittedly one of the strangest first looks I’ve ever had at a game in that I’m more excited for a non-game part of the package than anything else. I hope they find their way online in some fashion so that as many people can see them as possible. I don’t mean this as a criticism of the game, but instead as an incredible compliment to what Respawn is doing with the filmed real-life veteran interviews. I get what Hirschmann and his team are going for – they want to add historical context for what you’re doing in the game – but with Above and Beyond intentionally leaning more “game-y”, it’s a bit of a disconnect to then watch a very moving real-life tale. To the point that, as an initial impression, it greatly overshadowed the video game, which you have to play in order to unlock each of the veterans’ stories. “It was an emotionally powerful moment, even just in the clip I was shown. The two met for the first time and each shared his perspective on that day. It was the first time he’d told his story, and not only that, Respawn and their film production crew introduced the veteran to a Frenchman, also in his late-80’s or 90’s at this point, who lived on the farm where the American crashed and witnessed it as a teenager. the day after) returned to the field where he was shot down by the Germans. I saw a clip of one of these, in which a veteran serviceman who flew a glider into Normandy on D-Day +1 (i.e. The studio tracked down a number of surviving WWII veterans – all of which are in their 90’s today – and didn’t just interview them about their military service, but they went so far as to fly them back to Europe and to the exact place where their most memorable war moment took place. But where it might’ve been a photograph scanned into a bonus menu in the old games, here Respawn has laudably gone much, much farther. As was a tradition in the early Medal of Honor games, Above and Beyond includes real-world unlockable WWII content. And that’s what makes Above and Beyond’s live-action documentary-style B-side such a confusing complement. Game director Peter Hirschmann (who, in a heck of a full-circle career moment, worked on the original Medal of Honor back in the late ‘90s) emphasized that Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is meant to be a fun video game first, rather than a simulation or direct historical recreation. YES NOThe missions are inspired by World War II events, but they’re not direct recreations of them.
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