"The things we saw, the things we did... I'm sure I'll never have a worse nightmare in my life."
War Mongrels is a Real-Time Strategy Stealth-Based Game developed by Destructive Creations (the developers of Hatred and Ancestors Legacy) and published by Surefire Games. It was released for PC on October 19, 2021. A Spiritual Successor to the Commandos series, War Mongrels follows the story of Manfred Raufer, a former Wehrmacht soldier, as he recounts his defection from Nazi Germany in 1944 and the events that followed. Like Commandos, the player takes control of a group of partisans (referred to by the devs as the mongrels) fighting against the Nazis. Unlike Commandos, however, War Mongrels has a heavy emphasis on the horrors of the Third Reich, and the toll it takes on the protagonists' minds.
War Mongrels contains examples of:
- Accomplice by Inaction: As far as Lead is concerned, all Germans share the blame of the Holocaust because they chose to remain ignorant to the darker implications of the Nazi regime's rhetoric against 'lesser' races.
- All Germans Are Nazis: Averted. Manfred WAS a Nazi, but by the beginning of the story has become disillusioned with their propaganda. Ewald is not and never was a Nazi, and identifies as a Silesian
rather than a German, being conscripted at gun point. It's discussed in-story at one point between Manfred and Lead, with the former claiming that most Germans are simply ignorant of the extent of the Nazis actions, while Lead argues back that the German people are ignorant because they want to be ignorant. - All There in the Manual: Every playable character has a character sheet that can be accessed from the main menu that details their nationality, birthday, place of birth, what languages they speak, and background information.
- Animal Motifs: In the animated cutscenes, the Nazis are often depicted as being, or having the shadows of, terrifying and bloodthirsty wolves. In the bad (or, rather, the worse) ending, Manfred's shadow briefly warps into one, symbolizing that he was never able to forgive himself.
- Apologetic Attacker: Joachim doesn't like killing guard dogs, lamenting that it's not their fault their masters are such monsters.
- The Atoner: Manfred was a devout supporter of the Nazi party until he was forced to acknowledge the reality of their depravity, and now fights out of a sense of guilt and shame for having ever been a part of it.
- The Big Guy: Ewald is noted by just about everyone to be a massive slab of muscle, which prevents him from stealing german uniforms as disguises because he had to have all of his uniforms custom ordered to fit him. He is however able to use heavy weapons on the move, always wins when locked in a struggle, and can kill enemies faster and more quietly than the other mongrels.
- Bittersweet Ending: All of the heroes (save Ewald) survive the events of the game, but several die in the years after (the victims changing depending on which ending you unlock), and the survivors are traumatized for life thanks to the horrors they witnessed.
- Cynic–Idealist Duo: Manfred and Ewald, though with the twist that the depressive and serious Manfred is the idealist and the upbeat jokester Ewald is the cynic.
- Defector from Decadence:
- Manfred was once "the Nazis' golden boy", as described by Ewald, but after three years of fighting on the eastern front and witnessing the many atrocities committed by his countrymen, he deserted and became a partisan.
- Lukas was once a member of the Ypatingasis būrys (death squads composed of Lithuanian volunteers), though as soon as he discovered what they were actually for, he immediately defected and joined the Home Army.
- Subverted with Ewald, who was forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht and never once believed the Nazi propaganda.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Though they respect Greta's capabilities, all of the other mongrels still hold typical sexist views and see fighting alongside a woman as just another sign of how fucked up their situation is.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Manfred can disguise himself as an SS soldier, allowing him to move around freely so long as he doesn't linger around officers. Joachim and Greta can impersonate an SS officer and a secretary, respectively, which grants them the same freedom of movement as well as the ability to distract other SS soldiers by engaging them in conversation.
- Easily Forgiven: Zigzagged with Manfred. Lukas and Greta don't hold any grudges against him, but Joachim and especially Lead aren't so willing to overlook his past as a Nazi, though they do acknowledge that he is trying to atone.
- Evil vs. Evil: As far as the Poles are concerned, the Soviets are just as bad as the Nazis when it comes to their actions toward Poland and its people. The mongrels, bar Joachim, see the Soviets as just taking advantage of the war with the Nazis so they can play 'liberators' of Poland when in reality, the Soviets are just taking over Poland for their own.
- Friendly Sniper: Lead is pretty affable with everyone, with the one exception being Manfred due to the latters' Nazi ties, though they do develop something akin to respect over time.
- Gameplay and Story Integration:
- Ewald is considerably larger than most of his contemporaries, and so cannot disguise himself with stolen German uniforms because they simply will not fit.
- Greta and Joachim are not professional soldiers, and so are the only ones who are incapable of using stationary weapons.
- Genocide Survivor: Joachim is a German Jew who has survived two concentration camps and a death march.
- Hell Hole Prison: Over the course of the game the player is shown a German prison, a concentration camp, and a Soviet detention center, and the game does not pull punches in showing just how horrific the treatment is for anyone unlucky enough to be sent to any of them.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Joachim's lust for revenge against the Nazis crosses well over into obsession, and he takes a perverse delight in the deaths of anyone even remotely associated with them, be it the SS, German soldiers, or even just civilians who happen to work for them in any capacity. This reaches its breaking point in the final mission, where his misguided attempt to toast the Soviets as saviors who saved them all from Nazis hit the Berserk Button of the Polish mongrels who have a bad history with the Soviets and Joachim got beaten up badly, after which he decided to turn traitor and sold the group out to the Soviets in exchange for an officer position in their army.
- Insistent Terminology: Do not call Ewald a German. He is a Silesian, thank you very much.
- Irony: In the end, it's the former Nazi soldier who tries to redeem himself and saves his friends and a few civilians out of a concentration camp, while it's the resident Jew who lets his hatred got the better of him that puts his fellow friends into said camp despite having gone through one himself.
- Meaningful Name: The two Polish commandos go by code names that are pretty self-explanatory. Lead is a sniper and Rubble a demolitions expert.
- Mistaken Nationality: Ewald is erroneously referred to as German several times. While he is an ethnic German, he is a Polish citizen who hails from the Silesia region and identifies as a Silesian (A nationality that has been alternatingly recognized, disputed, and denied throughout history to the modern day).
- Multiple Endings: The game has two endings depending on whether or not you choose to spare Joachim in the final mission after he sold the mongrels out to the Soviets. In the ending where Joachim dies, Manfred ends up in Chicago and recounts his experiences to a psychiatrist, still haunted by his inner demons. He also noted that Greta was killed by the Soviets in the passing years after the war. In the ending where Joachim is spared, it's implied that Joachim is responsible for giving Manfred's location to authorities, who take him to Jerusalem where he gives testimony about his experiences, in which he noted that Lukas was killed by the Soviets and Rubble drank himself to death in the passing years. A silver lining, however, is that the judge ultimately deems that Manfred's actions have made up for his mistakes and he had successfully redeemed himself and thus let him go free, and Manfred is noticeably more at peace with himself despite the horrors he went through.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Manfred was already disillusioned with the Reich thanks to the many war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht and the SS, but he was horrified when he learned about the mass ethnic cleansings being spearheaded by the party he had once supported.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Joachim is the only main character to actually sound like he's from his country of birth, with all the others speaking in either an American or English accent. It extends to non-player characters as well, with some of the SS and Wehrmacht soldiers speaking with American accents.
- Not Helping Your Case: Manfred lands himself in deep water with both Lead and Joachim at different points by making ignorant claims based on the Nazi propaganda and historical revisionism he's been fed his entire life in response to accusations regarding German atrocities and his own complicity in them — though he's not trying to justify the atrocities themselves as much as trying to explain his own perspective and ignorance prior to his defection and that of the German people at large.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Manfred Raufer was inspired by real life German-born partisan Manfred Zanker, though with some key differences, mainly that Zanker had always opposed the Nazi party's ideology.
- Save Scumming: It wouldn't be a stealth RTS without it.
- Shout-Out: One of the characters is a Silesian who got forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht, deserted first given chance, is bigger and stronger than everyone else and is serving the role of The Big Guy for The Squad, all while cracking jokes non-stop and being touchy about being taken for a German. You mean Gustlik, right?
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: In one mission, Greta is captured and sent for interrogation, and one of the German guards constantly makes crude and graphic remarks on the sort of treatment she can expect to receive in the coming days.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A former Nazi trying to atone for his past, a Silesian conscript, a Lithuanian partisan, a school teacher turned sniper, a chemistry major turned demolitionist, a former nurse, and a Jewish factory owner. Together they do one thing and one thing only: kill Nazis.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Unlike most other games in this genre, most of the seven members of the titular Mongrels can barely put up with each other due to their past background and trauma. The three Polish mongrels (Lead, Rubble, Greta) and especially the Jewish Joachim despised Manfred because he's a former Nazi, while there are also tensions between Joachim and the three Poles as well as Lukas, a Lithuanian, due to their different outlooks on the Soviets and their actions. Only Ewald seems to get along with everyone and after he dies, the group promptly breaks down with Joachim selling everyone out to the Soviets and the rest of the mongrels go their separate ways after Manfred freed them from a Soviet camp; some of whom perished in the years that followed.
- Token Evil Teammate: Averted with Joachim. His obsession and joy in killing German soldiers does unnerve his allies, but considering the fact that he is a Jew who experienced the concentration camps first hand, it's hard to blame him. Though it's eventually played straight when it's revealed that he sold the rest of the mongrels out to the Soviets.
