In the daytime, the survivors will have to stay inside because there are hostile snipers outside, thereby offering the player time to craft tools from gathered materials, trade, upgrade the shelter, cook food and heal the survivors. The player must maintain their characters' health, hunger, and mood levels until the declaration of a ceasefire, which occurs after a randomized duration. Most of the characters under the player's control have no military background nor any kind of survival experience and will require constant intervention by the player in order to stay alive.

The main goal of the game is to stay alive during the war with the tools and materials that the player can gather. This War of Mine is a survival-themed strategy game where the player controls a group of civilian survivors in a makeshift-damaged house in the besieged fictional city of Pogoren, Graznavia. A version of the game that includes all the content entitled This War Of Mine: Complete Edition was released for the Nintendo Switch on November 27, 2018. An expansion pack called This War of Mine: The Little Ones was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 29, 2016, and on Jfor Windows. The Android port was released on July 14, 2015, followed by the iOS port on the following day (July 15). This War of Mine was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux in November 2014. There are various endings for each character, depending on the decisions made in the game. Characters have to make many difficult decisions in order to survive everyday dangers. The game differs from most war-themed video games by focusing on the civilian experience of war rather than front line combat. This War of Mine is a war survival video game developed and published by the Polish game development company 11 Bit Studios.

This war of mine game manual