The player embodies the members of a French Jewish family originally from Poland and follows their journey under the Vichy regime until their arrest in 1942 during the Vel d'Hiv roundup and their transfer to the Pithiviers camp, in where they are deported.

The evocation of the Holocaust is still taboo in the world of video games, few developers having ventured into what is considered to be slippery ground.

“There is the fear of making a game trivial or of oversimplifying,” explains Eugen Pfister, researcher at the Bern University of the Arts and specialist in the history of video games.

“There is also the fear of not being able to make a game in an ethical way,” he adds.

Among the blockbusters of recent years, one case stands out: the Wolfenstein series, in particular the opus "The New Order" (2014) in which the main character enters a fictional concentration camp in Croatia.

But this game is set in an alternate universe, where the Nazis won World War II, and doesn't aspire to a realistic depiction of the Holocaust.

"We see the chimneys, the wagons and even the selection of prisoners, but we never speak of concentration camps or even of Jews", describes Eugen Pfister.

In "The New Colossus" (2017), the sequel to "The New Order", genocidal horror is tackled more explicitly.

"No choice"

For Luc Bernard, the French creator of "The Light in the Darkness", the fact that the Holocaust is ignored in video games is problematic.

“Young people play games about the Second World War, like + Call of Duty +, where it is almost not mentioned,” he regrets.

"It's a bit like denying that it ever existed," continues the 36-year-old developer based in Los Angeles.

In "The Light in the Darkness", which Luc Bernard compares to "an interactive animated film", the player has no control over the course of the story and passively witnesses the tragic fate of the characters.

A person plays the video game "The Light in the Darkness" in Seattle, United States, February 23, 2023 © Jason Redmond / AFP

"I couldn't make a game where you win at the end," he explains.

"That was not the Holocaust, there was no choice."

Luc Bernard has researched extensively, consulting the archives of the American Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles.

He also benefited from the testimonies of survivors.

In a later version of "The Light in the Darkness", he plans to have some of them tell about their experience.

Mentalities evolution

About fifteen years ago, Luc Bernard had developed a first title on the Holocaust, "Imagination Is The Only Escape" ("The imagination is the only escape"), which he planned to release on Nintendo DS.

The game was inspired by the story of her grandmother, who transported Jewish children to Britain during the war.

The project was abandoned due to lack of funding.

Luc Bernard believes that a campaign against him in the press had done him a disservice, newspapers having, according to him, given the impression that it was about a morbid game dealing with an unapproachable subject.

But times have changed and "no one attacks me anymore", he remarks.

A person plays the video game "The Light in the Darkness" in Seattle, United States, February 23, 2023 © Jason Redmond / AFP

"The Light in the Darkness" is thus offered for free on the online store of Epic Games, the developer of the popular Fortnite saga.

The game is also on display at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle.

According to Eugen Pfister, the evolution of mentalities is comparable to that observed in the cinema after the series "Holocaust" (1978) and the film "Schindler's List" (1993) by Steven Spielberg.

"The consensus today is that Hollywood is capable of making films about the Holocaust," sums up the historian.

“I am optimistic that video games can also find a language to talk about it,” he says.

With hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and players worldwide, video games offer a unique platform to reach a wide audience, especially among the youngest.

Luc Bernard, who wants to "change things at the educational level", recently organized a discussion with a survivor on the Twitch streaming site.

"My goal is to get more developers interested in it to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive," he said.

© 2023 AFP