Nanking 1937: Breath Beneath Bayonets
In Nanking 1937, you do not play as an elite soldier, but lead a group of civilians struggling to survive in the fallen city. You must sneak through ruins at night, evade enemy patrols, scavenge supplies and make gut-wrenching moral choices. Experience war through the eyes of ordinary people.
Overview
Summary
In Nanking 1937, you do not play as an elite soldier, but lead a group of civilians struggling to survive in the fallen city. You must sneak through ruins at night, evade enemy patrols, scavenge supplies and make gut-wrenching moral choices. Experience war through the eyes of ordinary people.
Description
About This Game
In the vein of This War of Mine — a gritty blend of survival management and branching narrative set during the 1937 Nanking Massacre.
Winter 1937. The city has fallen. You lead a ragtag group of survivors — soldiers, nurses, children, and farmers — hiding in a hidden underground shelter.
By night, you sneak through ruined streets to scavenge food and medicine. By day, you craft tools, ration supplies, and tend to the wounded, all while evading enemy patrols. There are no heroes here. Only people trying to survive the fall of Nanking.
Every Decision Weighs Heavy:
Hunger, injury, and danger are constant. Do you share your last bread with a starving stranger, or keep it for the child beside you? There is no perfect choice — only the choice you can live with. Every decision shapes who lives, who dies, and who your survivors become.
Game Features:
Survival & Narrative: A tense balance of strategic resource management and deep branching storylines.
Scavenge, Craft, Endure: Night-time exploration, rationing, and item crafting in a desperate fight to survive.
A Story of Civilians: Multiple survivor arcs, each with their own past, fears, and reasons to keep going.
Rooted in Real History: Built on real survivor testimonies and oral histories, to honour the victims and bear witness to the human cost of war.
Historical Note:
In December 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japanese forces captured the Chinese capital of Nanking. Over the following six weeks, an estimated 300,000 unarmed civilians and prisoners of war were systematically killed in what became known as the Nanking Massacre. This game is a fictional survival story set within that real historical tragedy.
