Great Britain

Flag of Great Britain

"I suppose all of England must be forests by now."

— Ollie Starkey

Great Britain is a political union between the countries of England, Scotland and Wales. In We Happy Few, Britain was invaded and occupied by Germany during World War II.

While in real life Great Britain and Northern Ireland make up the United Kingdom, the UK is never actually mentioned in-game, and a Ireland was unified and independent from Britain. Sometimes referred to as the Mainland, it is the target destination for each of the protagonists as they seek to escape Wellington Wells.

Geography

There are only passing references towards specific cities in Britain.

• Arthur and Percy Hastings went on a trip to Plymouth in 1938.
• The Hastings family travelled to London at some point prior to 1939 in order to give Percy a medical examination, which revealed his developmental disorders.
• Ollie Starkey also hails from from Scotland and moved to Wellington Wells at some point. He served in the British military during World War II, and returned to Wellington Wells after the end of the war.
• Anton Verloc previously lived in London, but moved to Wellington Wells in 1940 in order to avoid the Blitz (a massive German bombing campaign against southern England).

A map found in the bunker at the Victory Memorial Camp places Wellington Wells on the west coast of England, in the Bristol Channel.

History

It seems that World War II progressed the same in-universe as it did in real life, with Germany taking Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc. before moving on to France in 1940. In 1942, the Germans mounted an invasion against Britain, though their forces were repelled. The Germans followed up this invasion in June 1943, with a bigger and more violent attack that enabled them to successfully conquer London; they subsequently pushed deeper into Britain, ravaging England with chemical weapons, gas attacks and airstrikes. By December 1943, most of Britain was under the control of the Germans.

In 1944, Erwin Rommel, as the leader of the German Empire, launched an invasion of the Soviet Union. While this was ongoing, the Germans established their control across Britain. In Wellington Wells, Colonel von Stauffenberg established the Executive Committee, which became the ultimate governing body for the city. The Soviets, meanwhile, had launched a counteroffensive into Western Europe and were quickly moving towards Berlin. The German occupation of Wellington Wells (and presumably the rest of Britain) ended soon after on 26 January 1948, and the country began to repair. The Executive Committee remained in charge of Wellington Wells and the city became largely independent from Great Britain. At some stage, trade between Britain and Wellington Wells would cease altogether.