En hantverkares renovering öppnar upp ett sekel av berättelser i Berlins lägenhet

The Berlin Apartment begins with a modest setup: a handyman renovates an old Berlin flat in 2020 while his daughter explores the space. That simple frame becomes a path through nearly a century of history as the apartment reveals traces of the people who lived there before. Each found object prompts a story, and each story anchors a moment in Germany’s past without leaning on spectacle or sentiment.

The game comes from Blue Backpack and builds its structure around four earlier timelines. Every segment centers on a tenant shaped by the political and social conditions of the era, and the apartment becomes a fixed point where those pressures accumulate. The approach is direct, compact, and grounded in physical detail. A ripped section of wallpaper and a photograph behind old tiles do the work of setting scenes that would otherwise require broader exposition.

The Berlin Apartment is available to play on PC (Steam).

The 1933 chapter follows Josef, an elderly former theater owner. He moves through the apartment with the ease of someone comfortable telling stories, commenting on every object he sees. The tone shifts the moment a menorah on a windowsill appears against the red banners outside. The contrast breaks the rhythm of his recollections and underlines how abruptly daily life in Germany changed that year. His theater stories, some styled as silent-film interludes, stand against the tightening political atmosphere pressing in from outside.

The 1945 section shifts to Mathilda, a young girl helping her mother and brother prepare the damaged apartment for Christmas. The war’s toll hangs over the family, most clearly in the absence of Mathilda’s father and the uncertainty surrounding him. Decorating a tree with spent shell casings and walking through collapsed rooms sets a stark backdrop for her gradual recognition of her father’s actions. Much of this segment depends on what the characters do not say, letting the space convey the gaps in their conversations.

In 1967, the story moves to Tonia, a novelist struggling to keep her manuscript intact while her publisher pushes for revisions. Her chapter is the only one that steps outside the apartment, following a spaceship setting imagined for her book. The jump into science-fiction landscapes dilutes the connection to the building and the city. While her conflict over creative control remains clear, the extended detour breaks the tight focus that defines the other timelines.

Kolja’s 1989 narrative restores that focus. He lives alone with a fish tank and the Berlin Wall outside his window. His contact with the other side comes through paper airplanes carrying letters, a small but effective device that conveys the era’s restricted but persistent lines of communication. The exchanges are simple, personal, and steady, matching the larger political tension surrounding them.

Back in 2020, Dilara looked out from the same windows and saw a city shaped by everything that came before. The rubble of 1945 is gone, the Wall no longer divides the streets, and signs of past lives remain only in the outlines of buildings and the stories her father has just shared. She notices where Josef’s theater once stood and where Kolja’s pen pal lived, placing each detail into a city that continues to absorb its history.

The Berlin Apartment runs about five hours and keeps its scale close to the rooms it recreates. The short runtime helps the game maintain clarity, keeping the focus on the apartment as a witness to shifting eras. Its strongest moments come when it ties personal routines to national events through objects that could easily be overlooked. By the end, the apartment becomes less a setting than a record of people who lived through distinct and often difficult periods.

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