''Talvisota: Icy Hell'' (Russian "Talvisota: Ледяной ад") is a

real-time tactics Real-time tactics (RTT)(Article at IGN discussing their perception of RTS and related genres as of 2006. RTT is discussed as a new and not yet established genre from the publisher's perspective, so currently all RTT possible titles are still con ...

and

educational Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education also fol ...

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

, developed by the international developer group Blitzfront Game Studio and is based on the events of the

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

() conflict of 1939–1940 between

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The game is built-up upon

Nival Interactive Nival is a video game developer and publisher founded by Sergey Orlovskiy in 1996. It is headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus. History The company was founded by Sergey Orlovskiy on November 18, 1996 as Nival Interactive, and became famous as the d ...

Enigma Engine Nival is a video game developer and publisher founded by Sergey Orlovskiy in 1996. It is headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus. History The company was founded by Sergey Orlovskiy on November 18, 1996 as Nival Interactive, and became famous as the d ...

that was used in the ''

Blitzkrieg ''Blitzkrieg'(Lightning/Flash Warfare)'' is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with ...

'' game and is a fully stand-alone product. The

Finnish Board of Film Classification The Finnish Board of Film Classification (; ) was an official institution of the Finnish Ministry of Education. From 1946 until the end of year 2011, the VET/SFB was responsible for inspecting and rating the content of movies and video games. I ...

determined that ''Talvisota: Icy Hell'' is both a

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...

and an

educational game Educational games are games explicitly designed with educational purposes, or which have incidental or secondary educational value. All types of games may be used in an educational environment, however educational games are games that are design ...

Game features

* Two long campaigns for Soviet and Finnish sides. * Historical accuracy. * Based on real political and historical events before and during the Winter War. * Historical encyclopedia and archives videos. *

Molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see '') is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a frangible container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a Fuse (explosives), fuse (typically a glass bottle filled wit ...

s, soldiers speaking Russian and Finnish, authentic battle-front reports, airplanes, skiing troops,

satchel charge A satchel charge is a demolition device, primarily intended for combat, whose primary components are a charge of dynamite or a more potent explosive such as C-4 plastic explosive, a carrying device functionally similar to a satchel or messeng ...

flamethrower A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World W ...

tanks, and experimental units.

Development history

The game's development was started by the Russian language online community, which consisted of people from different countries that were interested in military history and historical games. In 2004 they started wondering why nobody had made a game about the Winter War, a highly interesting war conflict, although somewhat unknown to the public. They decided to make the game themselves. Because of various publishing problems, the game wasn't released for a long time despite development being completely finished. At the end of 2007 the game was finally released in CIS countries in Russian. A year later, at the end of 2008, the game was released in Finland in English.

Critical reception

The game received generally positive reviews from game critics. Finland's main website for historians reviewed the game from historical and cultural perspectives, and their opinion was generally positive. There were some negative opinions as well. For example, Finnish Captain Olli Ovaska said that the game claimed that the Finnish military attacked the USSR on the first day of the war, but according to the game developers, Olli Ovaska misunderstood something as they never claimed such a thing. However content within the game itself has the player recreating a version of the

Shelling of Mainila The Shelling of Mainila (, ), or the Mainila incident (), was a military incident on 26 November 1939 in which the Soviet Union's Red Army shellfire, shelled the Soviet border village of Mainila () near Beloostrov. The Soviet Union declared that ...

as a mission for the Soviets defending against Finnish aggression - with the events being presented as being as historically accurate as any other mission in the game, with no text in the mission or its briefing stating that they are fictional. The game's official Russian language website recounts this event as a historic fact (a page which is missing from the Finnish language version of the site, but they have a unique page defending the game's historical accuracy which is not present on the Russian portal), which support Olli Ovaska's claims that the game promotes the Shelling of Mainila as being a Finnish act of aggression, and not a

false flag A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misrep ...

incident carried out by the Soviets.

References

External links

*
Official Finnish website
*
Official Russian website
{{Blitzkrieg series 2007 video games Enigma Engine games History educational video games Real-time tactics video games Single-player video games Video games developed in Finland Video games developed in Russia Video games set in Finland Video games with isometric graphics Windows games Windows-only games World War II video games