I got an email earlier this week, and I got very excited, because I’ve been following Vitar Games for a while now to keep tabs on the studio’s upcoming game. The thing is, it didn’t have a Steam page until this week. Dig In is a World War I (Yes, but one?), trench warfare-based colony sim, and not colony as in what the majority of nation-states at the time were fighting for, but rather the game genre. I suspect I might be using advanced war tactics soon enough, straight from General Melchett.

As the title and already mentioned excitement suggest, I’ve been following Dig In on social media for a while, but this week the team at Vitar Games revealed the new Steam page. With the press release noting:

“September 1914. The war has ground to a halt. Now you dig in. Take command of your sector in Dig In, a WW1 Trench Warfare Colony Sim from Vitar Games. Carve the battlefield by digging and extending trench networks where your men live, sleep, and fight.

Hold fast as artillery shapes the destructible battlefield. Move supplies, reinforce your lines, and design your defenses—using barbed wire in No Man’s Land to funnel the enemy into deadly strongpoints. When the moment comes, blow the whistle and send your men over the top. What kind of commander will you be? The shepherd to your men, or their butcher?

In the fragile calm before the storm, every decision matters. Ensure your troops are fed, sheltered, and safe in your trenches. Morale will decide how long they last. Do what you can to meet the demands of High Command as you deploy sections of men who only months ago were bakers, farmers, bellboys, and foremen. Hold the line as long as you can. Because victory isn’t about advancing — it’s about surviving.“

A further press release noted that the trailer featured on the GameTrailers YouTube channel has also garnered over 100K views in 24 hours, and at the time of writing, it has over 200K. Maybe by next Thursday, we’ll see those numbers rise to the military deaths of Ottoman soldiers— You see, the joke there is, two million Turkish civilians were reported dead with only 300K military deaths, combined, that’s more than French deaths total. I guess that’s what happens when you fly a White flag all the time.

If the countless articles and current adulation shown here don’t demonstrate this enough, I love historical 20th-century war games. Especially ones where it is as much a mental game as it is blowing a whistle and shouting “CHARGE!!!” From the art style giving a hint of whimsy in the never-ending horrors of war to the fact that little ghosts rise from dead bodies in no man’s land, it seems to me that Vitar Games has gotten the tone right for a game about something somber, but you need to keep pushing.

There is no release date as of yet for Dig In, which makes sense given that the Steam Page just went live this week. However, as noted at the end of the trailer, there will be a demo available sometime next month. As per usual, there is a Steam Next Fest for June, and as per usual, it will probably be while everyone here at Phenixx Gaming is busier than Mata Hari and Germaine Guérin. Hopefully, for my sanity, it is one of those demos that is available for more than just a week.

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