The Light in the Darkness: Director's Cut launches free on PlayStation 5

The Light in the Darkness: Director's Cut launches today on PlayStation 5 as a free game that follows a Polish-Jewish family in Nazi-occupied France as they face deportation and persecution. The rebuilt version of Luc Bernard's 2023 narrative game adds full voice acting, expanded story material, and an ending sequence at Auschwitz that Bernard said he couldn't afford to finish in the original self-funded project.

Unlike most World War II games, The Light in the Darkness offers no weapons, no enemies to defeat, and no path to victory. "The people in this story had no control over the forces closing in on them, and I wanted the player to experience that loss of control," Bernard explained. The player "can't save everyone or rewrite history," but can spend time with the characters and come away with greater empathy for those lost in the Holocaust.

The story concludes at Auschwitz, though players don't fully explore it. Players go from the train directly to the gas chambers, mirroring the immediacy of killings many French Jews experienced upon arrival. Bernard said a reconstruction lets players feel "the physical reality of the place" in a way photographs and documentaries cannot, preventing the location from feeling like a "vague backdrop." The team was intentional about what to show, building the sequence from research, photographs, archival material and documentation while leaving out anything exploitative. "The goal was never to recreate suffering for shock value," Bernard said.

The Director's Cut includes rebuilt environments, full voice performances, expanded narrative, new animation and story material. Bernard self-funded the original game with a very small budget, which prevented him from fully realizing the depth of environments, animation, voice acting and the Auschwitz ending. The Claims Conference, which administers German government funds for Holocaust survivors, funded the new edition alongside Meta. Bernard made the game free because he doesn't want cost "to be a barrier to experiencing this story." He believes video games "can make people feel more than any other form of entertainment," making them a key tool for empathy and carrying Holocaust memory forward.

Bernard stepped away from game development two years ago for humanitarian work connected to the war in Gaza. He worked with Yehuda Cohen, whose son was held hostage, and said the original game's reception among governments and anti-terrorism officials helped him evacuate friends' families from Gaza. The experience showed him "the best and worst of people," he said, and reinforced that "extremism can happen fast."

The game is rated E10+ but Bernard urged parents to judge for themselves and play it first, saying the game "is not, and was never intended to be, for children." The Light in the Darkness: Director's Cut is available now on PlayStation 5. An Epic Games Store release is "coming soon," and more platforms are planned over time.